


Kickass

by seejayyou



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Minor Character Death, PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slavery, Slow Burn, Whump, explicit sexual content in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21837724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seejayyou/pseuds/seejayyou
Summary: And behind the girl was another man – dark-haired and crouching, tense as a compressed spring.It was this man that spotted her standing in the hallway, the jug of water in her numb arms, staring.Even from thirty feet away, KX-5629 could tell he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, with intense eyes, a strong jawline, and a head full of curly hair. She couldn’t move a muscle as she watched alarm light his face, furrow his brow.She was still completely frozen as the beautiful man aimed a blaster at her.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Original Character(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just...really interested in Poe Dameron and think the world needs more of him.

KX-5629 saw the infiltrators before they saw her.

The man crouching in front of the little group had lovely skin the color of polished wood, a rich brown, and he was breathing hard, one arm flung out behind him to keep his companions out of the way. Behind him, a young woman with black hair and a fair, heart-shaped face was furiously working to get what looked like some kind of communication device operational again. And behind the girl was another man – dark-haired and crouching, tense as a compressed spring. It was this man that spotted her standing in the hallway, the jug of water in her numb arms, staring.

Even from thirty feet away, KX-5629 could tell he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, with intense eyes, a strong jawline, and a head full of curly hair. She couldn’t move a muscle as she watched alarm light his face, furrow his brow.

She was still completely frozen as the beautiful man aimed a blaster at her.

They stared at one another, KX-5629 and the man who might shoot her, until her numb arms finally betrayed her and she dropped the jug of water. It clattered noisily on the marble floor of the hallway. The liquid inside spilled everywhere and soaked the bottom of the stupid silk tunic her master insisted she wear.

“Oh, for the Maker’s sake,” came an angry voice from the kitchen, out of sight. _“Girl!”_

KX-5629 jumped at the sound of the house matron’s voice, but could not turn away from the little group. She didn’t think she could break eye contact with the man if she tried. All three of them were staring at her, now.

“Yes, madam. Sorry, madam.”

“I just cleaned that floor,” the matron said, her voice dripping with hatred. “Come get this mop before I change my mind and make you clean it up with that excuse for a dress you’re wearing.”

“Yes, madam,” she said robotically. The little group was still staring at her, caught like a group of wild animals in a floodlight.

 _“Go,”_ KX-5629 mouthed at them, and her hands fluttered nervously, making a shooing motion. _“Run.”_

“Where?” the dark-skinned man mouthed back at her, and before she could think through what she was doing, KX-5629 had scurried forward to pick up the jug, which had come to a halt at the feet of the man who had aimed the blaster at her.

“East wing,” she murmured, pressing her ring of keys into the palm of his unresisting hand. “Third floor.”

“The prisoners?” he breathed, and she nodded.

“Hurry,” she urged. “One is sick. I’ve done everything I can for him, but I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to hold on.”

The two in front nodded and began to sneak down the hallway, but the man holding her key ring hesitated. KX-5629 met his gaze and for a split-second, she found herself frozen again.

His eyes were warm and filled with emotions she didn’t immediately recognize; she hadn’t seen them in so long: sympathy. Gratitude.

He squeezed her hand.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

 _“Girl!”_ screamed the matron.

KX-5629 squeezed his hand back, swallowing, and she hoped he couldn’t tell she was trembling. She turned and began to let go of his grasp, but he suddenly redoubled his grip.

“Help us. Come with us,” he said.

“Where?” she breathed.

The man smiled in a crooked sort of way.

“Somewhere far away from here. Somewhere the First Order can’t get us.”

KX-5629 could hear the matron’s heavy steps; they were shaking the walls as she stomped her way up the long stairway, out of the basement kitchen. She turned to look over her shoulder at the wet, slick floor and then back at the man. And then she quietly set down the jug and nodded at him.

His crooked smile grew and lit up his whole face.

“This way,” she hissed, and she started to pull him by their joined hands down the passage.

“KX-5629!” the matron’s voice, rough with anger, sounded much closer. “Report immediately or I will tell your master you need another round of behavior modification.”

KX-5629 shuddered and stopped. The man tried to pull her along, but she shook her head at him.

“Coming, madam,” she said in a high, scared voice, and she pushed the man by the shoulder down toward his friends.

“Hide,” she whispered. “Closet two doors down on the left.”

“Don’t,” he implored, looking behind her at the kitchen doorway, but she shook her head again.

“If I don’t report she’ll know something is wrong and we’ll all get caught,” she whispered harshly, and even though she could tell he didn’t like it, he grimaced and obeyed, dashing to the closet door and beckoning to his friends. The door closed, hiding them, just in time.

“Oh, I’m sorry to be wasting your time,” said the matron sarcastically. “Shall I come and fetch you, then, you lazy Schutta?”

“No, madam,” she replied, and, after retrieving the ceramic pitcher from the floor, turned to face the enormous, purple-faced woman.

“Here, let’s trade,” said the matron in a falsely cheerful, deadly sort of voice, and she shoved the mop into KX-5629’s arms, then took the pitcher to inspect it.

“You’re lucky this didn’t break,” she said.

“Yes, madam,” KX-5629 said, keeping her gaze trained at the ground.

“Well…get to work,” said the matron after a long moment, and KX-5629 turned to begin mopping.

There was a blinding flash of pain and then she was lying flat on her back on the wet floor amidst shards of pottery, gasping. She stopped gasping and began heaving without air when the matron’s bare foot sank into her stomach - once, twice, three times - only stopping when KX-5629 managed to curl in on herself protectively.

“Tsk, tsk,” said the matron wickedly, a little out of breath. “I guess it did break, after all. I’ll be telling your master about that, too, unfortunately. Clean this up and then report to the reconditioning chambers. Immediately.”

The matron turned on her heel and stalked back down to the kitchen while KX-5629 tried to sit up, blinking furiously to clear the black spots dancing in front of her eyes, still opening and closing her mouth like a landed fish.

A pair of strong hands suddenly gripped her shoulders and helped her to sit up straight.

“Damn,” said the dark-skinned man from somewhere up above, while the woman gasped at the sight of her. KX-5629 wasn’t entirely sure, but it felt like the pitcher had been smashed into the left side of her face: temple, eye, cheekbone, and lip. Her diaphragm throbbed and she felt dizzy from lack of oxygen.

“I’m okay,” KX-5629 wheezed, wrapping her arms around her own abdomen, but the man holding her shoulders tightened his grip.

“No, you’re not,” he corrected in a low, furious voice. “And if we didn’t have a mission to complete, I would do a lot worse to that wastoid.”

KX-5629 tried to take in a normal breath but couldn’t. Instead she doubled over uncontrollably so that her forehead was in the man’s shoulder, but he didn’t push her away.

“Breathe with me,” he said. “In for five, out for five, ready?”

Gulping, gasping, she managed to do it after four tries.

“Good. Let’s try sitting up next, okay?” He gently pushed her away from his shoulder and tried to hide a grimace as he saw her face. KX-5629 noticed blood on his sleeve - her own.

“Sorry,” she rasped, nodding at it and then wincing as the action caused a wave of pain to radiate down her neck.

“Don’t worry about it.” He paused and looked up at his companions, then back at her.

“Do you know if anyone else is here besides you two?” he asked.

“No one - no one else in the house besides the prisoners,” KX-5629 wheezed. “Troopers and superiors in - the training facility - a mile away.”

“At least our intel was accurate,” whispered the woman.

“Can you walk?” asked the man.

“I think so.”

“Okay, I’m gonna help you up. Ready? 1, 2, 3.”

KX-5629 was hoisted to her feet. Upon achieving uprightness, the room promptly began to spin. She groaned and started to list sideways.

“Whoa, whoa,” the man said, catching her.

“I’m okay,” she said again, but she could feel the man shaking his head as he steadied her.

“Finn, Rose – you guys need to go get the senator and her family. I’m going to help her to the ship.”

“Got it,” said the woman – Rose – and she smiled tentatively at KX-5629. “Where is it, again?”

The man passed her the keys.

“She said third floor, east wing.”

“Fourth door on the right,” KX-5629 added in a voice like a rusted hinge.

“See you at the ship,” said the man she thought must be Finn, and the two of them disappeared silently down the hall.

“You can hide me in the closet,” said KX-5629. “Go with them and…and come back for me.”

The man laughed humorlessly and slung her left arm around his shoulders. He bent his knees slightly to put an arm at her back and his other arm under her knees; the world spun again as he carried her over the minefield of ceramic shards, sparing her bare feet.

“Not a chance. Pretty sure you’ve got a concussion and I’m not leaving you here with that witch.”

“She’s not always so awful,” KX-5629 muttered as he set her down again. “Her granddaughter was sold a few days ago and she’s…y’know.”

The man paused for an infinitesimal second.

“Sold?” he asked in a careful voice.

“To the Hutts,” she said. “Eight years old.”

“Maker,” he breathed.

They didn’t continue to speak as he helped her through the mansion, pausing every now and then to look around corners. KX-5629 thought she must have blacked out for a while, because the next conscious thought she had after they sneaked through the first-floor library window and into the thick woods beyond was that of being shaken.

“Wh –”

“Hey, there we go,” said the man. “There’s those bright eyes.”

“What?” she groaned, and she felt something icy cold press down on her tender forehead. She winced.

“Sorry, that’s gonna hurt,” he said apologetically. “Hold it there, if you can, okay? And don’t go to sleep on me again.”

KX-5629 tried to nod, but stopped, as it hurt like hell. She did manage to find him with her eyes again, even though her vision was fuzzy.

They were in some kind of ship and he was standing next to her, one arm up above his head, leaning on the wall.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“No, thank you,” he rejoindered. “Without your help, we’d’ve been caught right away.”

“The senator is kind,” said KX-5629. “I'm glad you're here. She’s so worried about her son.”

“Is he the sick one?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“My master threatened to sell him with the little girl if she didn’t cooperate.”

The man sat down heavily next to her.

“Cooperate?”

“They drugged the food to keep them complacent, but the senator knew. She wouldn’t eat it, and she wouldn’t let her family eat it. But then he threatened the boy and they ate. I think he’s allergic to the drugs. I managed to sneak them a little food now and then that wasn’t drugged, but it wasn’t enough.”

The man was silent for a long moment, his face dark with repressed anger.

“Finn and Rose will get them out. I’ll go out to the treeline and see if I can help here in a minute.”

KX-5629 nodded again and tried to sit up. The man helped her to do so, noting how she shivered in her thin ivory dress.

“Here,” he said, and took off his jacket before settling it on her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said, and managed a smile. He smiled back, wincing a little in sympathy, and handed her a wad of gauze from the med kit.

“You’ve got a busted lip, there. Don’t smile so big.”

That only made her laugh weakly, and she felt the sting and warm streak of coppery blood trickle down her chin. She wiped it with the gauze and shrugged.

“Had worse,” she said, trying to lighten the mood, but his eyes flared with anger.

“You have?” he asked quietly.

She shrugged again, not meeting his eyes.

“How long were you kept in that house?”

“A few weeks,” she whispered. “But I’ve been with my master for a few years. We moved here recently, when he was assigned the prisoners.”

“And where were you before that?” KX-5629 tried to tell him, but her throat felt like it had closed up of its own accord, so she shook her head.

“What’s your name?”

“KX-5629,” she managed to croak.

“Have you ever had another one?”

“I, uh…” she said, wiping her eyes with the non-bloodied side of the gauze. “I think so. But I can’t remember it.”

The man sighed.

“Well, my name is Poe,” he told her. “And I can't keep all those numbers straight. So...how ‘bout I call you Kix?”

She let out a broken huff of laughter.

“Kix?”

“Sure. My friend Finn – the one back there – he was a Stormtrooper. FN-2 something or other. So, I called him Finn instead.”

She blinked.

"Do you make it a habit to name people who betray the First Order?"

Poe smiled and shrugged one shoulder.

"It's not a bad habit to have."

She sat back against the wall of the ship and shyly smiled back at him, careful not to stretch her busted lip too wide.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Poe,” she said, her voice still rough, but she managed to hold out the hand that wasn’t balancing the cold pack on top of her head.

“Likewise,” said Poe, and he took her hand gently. “Kix.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How did you know she would turn?” Finn asked him quietly. Poe let out a short, humorless laugh, his gaze fixed on the sky outside as he flew.
> 
> “Because I know you.”
> 
> Finn frowned.
> 
> “What?”
> 
> “Only seen the look in that girl’s eyes once before,” Poe said. He paused and looked over at Finn with a mixture of admiration and amusement on his face. “On you, when you took your helmet off and asked me if I could fly a TIE fighter.”
> 
> Finn scoffed.
> 
> “Seriously,” said Poe, turning his attention back to their flight path. “It’s not hard to recognize, once you’ve seen it.”

The senator’s husband and son were gone.

Poe piloted the ship wordlessly, listening to Rose comfort Senator Yawu’s broken sobs.

“They took them both,” Finn told him quietly as he sat in the co-pilot’s seat. Poe tried to breathe deeply, controlling his fury, not wanting to jerk the ship around in his anger. “In the middle of the night last night. We searched everywhere – they’re not in the house. Yawu thinks they were trafficked.”

“I want nothing more than to go back and kill this guy,” seethed Poe, and despite his best efforts, the ship lurched suddenly.

“Easy, easy,” Finn said, and Poe took another deep breath, nodding.

“Sorry.”

“I know,” said Finn. “But we have to get these people back to safety.”

Poe nodded and Finn looked over to the girl, who seemed to be wrapped up in her own thoughts, not listening, staring blankly at the opposite wall of the ship.

“How did you know she would turn?” Finn asked him quietly. Poe let out a short, humorless laugh, his gaze fixed on the sky outside as he flew.

“Because I know you.”

Finn frowned.

“What?”

“Only seen the look in that girl’s eyes once before,” Poe said. He paused and looked over at Finn with a mixture of admiration and amusement on his face. “On you, when you took your helmet off and asked me if I could fly a TIE fighter.”

Finn scoffed.

“Seriously,” said Poe, turning his attention back to their flight path. “It’s not hard to recognize, once you’ve seen it.”

Finn shook his head.

“You’re full of it,” he said.

“Of what?” asked Poe, too innocently. “Bravery? Wisdom?”

“Bantha druk,” said Finn. Poe snorted and they lapsed into silence.

Finn tried not to stare at the girl, but she kept drawing his gaze.

She was thin - a little too thin, he thought, like she didn’t get enough calories. Her hair was long and wavy and a light coppery brown color where it wasn’t streaked by blood. Her skin was fair and dotted with freckles and white and pink scars, especially around her neck, where a thick bronze collar had been fixed. Most startling, though, were her eyes: huge, currently unfocused, and surprisingly light green, underscored by deep purple rings of sleeplessness. She had been made to wear a silk tunic that was fixed to the collar around her neck, but had no sleeves. Her arms and hands and feet were all bare, but they looked strong and rough to the touch, with painful red cracks showing along the knuckles.

“Do you know what the KX designation means in the First Order?” Finn suddenly asked Poe, so quietly Poe almost didn’t hear him.

“No,” he said. “What is it?”

Finn grimaced.

“There was a kid I used to know…well, when _I_ was a kid. She was named FN-2079, but her designation was changed to KX when one of the superior officers took an interest in her. She, uh…she disappeared two days later.”

“An _interest_?” asked Poe, as if he didn’t understand, but he thought maybe somewhere inside he did, as hot bile began rising in his throat.

Finn didn’t say anything; just gave him a look Poe wished he could forget.

" _Kriffing hell,_ " said Poe, and he took his shaking hands off the controls to cover his face; wiped off the clammy sweat that had broken out there. 

Finn grabbed the stick until Poe had regained control of himself and the ship. He flew it in silence for a few long moments.

“I kind of suspected but I didn’t want to believe it,” he muttered.

“Communiqué from General Organa,” said Rose’s voice from behind them. Her eyes were red from comforting Senator Yawu, who now seemed to be asleep. “We’re hiding on Iopethus. Here’s the coordinates.”

“Thanks, Rose,” said Poe, and they exchanged miserable half-smiles. “Good work back there.”

“And you,” she replied, squeezing his shoulder.

* * *

The mood of the abandoned hangar on Iopethus was dissonantly celebratory when they disembarked. Poe could tell the whole company was high on their successful escape from their last hideout; there were no missing ships or pilots and for that he was grateful.

But the moment Finn stepped off the freighter and presented Leia with Senator Shireen Yawu, all chatter died at once. Yawu herself fell into Leia’s arms and wept.

Leia looked up at Poe. Her arms curled around the senator without a second thought, even though the rescued woman’s filthy state was leaving streaks of dirt on Leia’s own pristine clothing.

“Commander?”

“We were able to rescue Senator Yawu, General,” he said in the most even voice he could manage. “Her husband and son were gone before we got there. My team was unable to locate them on the premises before we had to leave.”

“They took them, Leia,” said Yawu bitterly, half-choking. “They took Ala and Benno.”

“Who did, Shireen?” asked Leia.

“Hux,” said a small voice from behind Poe. All eyes turned to rest upon Kix, who looked small and shrunken and colorless except for the rust-like smears of blood that had dried around her mouth.

“Hux ordered them sold,” she continued, even though she looked scared to death.

Poe felt dangerously close to snapping the last thread of his tether.

“Hux was your master?” he demanded of Kix, who, though looking even more anxious at his outburst, answered. 

“No. My master was on Hux’s payroll.”

Poe swore and turned back to Leia.

“General, how did we not –”

“Shut up, Commander,” ordered Leia sharply, her arms full of her sobbing friend and her eyes full of the broken-looking Kix. 

Poe shut up.

“All of you to the med bay. We’ll debrief there.”

* * *

Poe couldn’t help but admire the way Kix explained herself to Leia, even though they could tell she was still scared and in pain. It had been a few hours since she had been assaulted, and deep violet and ashen gray bruising was beginning to develop around her left eye and cheekbone. He was sure she’d have the same or worse on her abdomen, though the scans showed no fractured ribs. A huge lump was visible under the shining, reddish-brown of her hair, but the cuts had been cleaned and the bleeding there and at her lip stopped by some butterfly bandages.

“Thank you for helping my team, Kix,” said Leia kindly. “It was a brave thing to do.”

Kix nodded shyly.

“It wasn’t much, ma’am,” she said. “They were the ones who rescued me.”

“It was, too,” said Poe seriously. Leia cut her eyes over at him and sighed over-dramatically for Kix’s benefit.

“As you can see, Commander Dameron likes to make his opinions known,” she said conspiratorially, and Kix smiled. The butterfly bandage held. 

“Dameron, go get our new friend some proper clothes and then show her to Tico’s quarters. They can share a unit while Kix finishes concussion protocol.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Poe. “But I think Rose is on duty at the moment.”

“Well, then you stay with her in Tico’s unit until she gets back. Understood?”

“Understood, General.”

* * *

Poe had never seen anything as sad as Kix looking in awe at a cargo dumpster full of used shoes.

“Yeah, I know they’re not great,” he said, grimacing at the smell of secondhand combat boots. “But they’re solid enough for wear. C’mon, what’s your size?”

Kix’s jaw was slightly open as she looked at the mound of boots.

“I…I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t had a pair of shoes in…years.”

Poe paused in stooping down to pick up a pair.

“What?”

“I haven’t worn shoes since I was a kid,” said Kix.

Poe took a deep, steadying breath.

“Alright, well…let’s try some on and see what we can do,” he said.. “You look like…maybe, this pair? Let’s start there.”

Kix sat down on a nearby box and put on the wool socks they had gotten for her just a few minutes before. She smiled and wiggled her toes.

“Warm,” she said, and Poe laughed.

“That’s the idea. Here, try this.”

He handed her the right boot and she slipped it on. He waited for her to start tying it before he realized the problem.

“Oh!” he said. “Oh, right. You probably…don’t know how to do that.”

He bent to lace up the boot and saw her cheeks were burning in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” she said, self-conscious, and as he tied off the bow, he looked up at her.

“You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, Kix.”

She nodded but didn’t look convinced.

“C’mon, up,” he said, and she stood with him, testing the right boot. A look of delight covered her face.

“Do these have metal toes?”

“Yep,” he said. “I think they’re technically mechanic’s boots – they work around a lot of heavy equipment. Don’t want heavy objects dropping on someone’s toes and crushing them.”

“I think it fits?” she said, unsure. “Can I put the other one on?”

“Yeah, here – let me show you how to tie it.”

He did, and after a few tries, she got the hang of it.

“See? Not hard at all,” he said, and she shrugged one shoulder a little guiltily.

“I used to watch Malfeks tie his shoes,” she admitted. “I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Who is Malfeks?” Poe asked, and Kix’s cheeks flushed again. He thought she might ignore his question, but after a moment, she answered.

“My master.”

Poe nodded, slowly, hate and anger churning in his gut.

“Your former master,” he said in what he hoped was a calm, matter-of-fact sort of voice.

Kix chewed the inside of her bottom lip.

“Yeah,” she agreed, but not confidently.

He tried again, not breaking eye contact with her.

“ _Former_ ,” he said firmly, and was rewarded with a reluctant smile that transformed her whole face.

* * *

Their next stop was Rose’s station, where the engineer used a soldering iron to melt and break off the clasp of the metal collar around Kix’s neck. When it came off, Poe saw a look of near-panic on Kix’s face.

“Hey, you alright?” he asked, moving toward her as Rose tossed the collar in the trash compactor.

“Yeah,” she said breathlessly, her hands tracing the fair, scarred skin around her neck. “I just…I’ve worn that for a long time.”

“Do you want it back?” asked Rose hesitantly, her hand moving toward the compactor.

“No!” Kix said, quickly and adamantly. “No, I do not.”

* * *

The clothes – the shoes – the absence of the damned collar she had worn since childhood – all of it made Kix feel like a new person. She had luxuriated in a long, steaming shower (“You’re lucky!” Poe had called through the refresher door. “Last place we hid out, there was no hot water!”), careful not to get her butterfly bandages too wet, and now kept tugging at the material of her thick canvas trousers and shirt, marveling at how strong and warm it all was.

“I bet I could kick a wall of neuranium in these,” she bragged to Poe, sitting back on the spare cot in Rose’s quarters and tapping the toes of her boots together. “And I wouldn’t feel a thing.”

He laughed and handed her a tin of salve from the med bay.

“Try some of this on those knuckles, and then according to this timetable the meddroid gave you, you can sleep for a bit. I’ll have to wake you up in an hour to check on you, though.”

Kix unscrewed the top of the medicinal ointment and dipped a tentative finger in it. The look of amazed relief on her face would’ve been funny if the reason for it hadn’t been so sad.

“Wow,” she sighed. “This is better than the socks.”

Poe tried to smile, but he couldn’t manage it. He just watched as she rubbed her hands down and then carefully put the tin on the table next to her cot like it was made of platinum.

“I’m gonna just sit over on Rose’s cot. Is that okay? She’ll be off duty in a few hours and then you can get rid of me.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to get rid of you,” she blurted out, scandalized. He grinned, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, really?” he said, teasing, as Kix covered her face with both hands.

“I just meant,” she said into them, her voice muffled, “I’m not offended by you being here. With me. I mean...ugh.”

Poe laughed and eased himself back on Rose’s cot. He watched Kix out of the corner of his eye as she covered herself up with a faded Haysian woven blanket from Rose’s home planet. He was pretty sure it had belonged to Paige Tico, Rose’s sister, and the thought caused a hot, sweeping wave of guilt to wash over him.

“Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“Does the Resistance require the people they rescue to join the fight?”

He looked at her, surprised.

“No,” he said. “No, that’s not how it works.”

Kix pulled the blanket up to her chin.

“There weren’t a lot of people in the hangar,” she commented quietly.

Poe met her gaze seriously.

“We need everyone we can get, Kix. But that’s not why we brought you here.”

She looked at him, a bit of mistrust in her eyes.

“Okay,” she said.

He shook his head and strode over to her cot, kneeling down beside her.

“This isn’t the First Order. This isn’t a place where you’re owned by someone or something else without choice. If you were to join, yeah, of course, there would be orders handed down by command. You saw Leia shut me up earlier, but she only does that because I signed up for it.”

“But I don’t have to join.”

“No, you don’t have to join.”

Silence fell for a few moments.

“I wasn’t allowed shoes because it’s easier to keep a house slave from running away without them,” she said in a sudden rush, her cheeks coloring.

Poe couldn’t help himself. He brushed some of her hair back from her swollen face, being careful of her bruises.

“Yeah, I know, Kix,” he said, softly. 

“You do?” she asked.

“I don’t know it like you do. Obviously,” he said. “But I know the First Order. I’ve seen them wipe out whole villages, whole planets, whole _systems_. People like you, and like Finn, and all the others...that’s why I fight them.”

She chewed the inside of her lip.

“See, you keep rescuing people across the galaxy, give ‘em kickass shoes, say stuff like that?” She grinned. “You’ll build the Resistance back up, no problem.”

Poe smiled. “That’s the plan.”

“I think...I’d like to help.”

He smoothed a hand over her hair again. It felt and looked like polished uneti wood under his palm.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

She nodded and closed her eyes.

“See you in an hour,” she said sleepily.

* * *

“Up and at ‘em,” said Poe, gently squeezing Kix’s shoulder. She groaned and tried to bury her face in the pillow.

“Yeah, concussion protocol’s a pain,” he acknowledged. “C’mon.”

Her eyes only opened halfway so that all he saw in the light of Rose’s desk lamp were strips of pale gray-green.

“Morning, sunshine. Can you tell me your name?”

“KX-5629,” she said robotically.

“No, that _used_ to be your name,” he reminded her. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, wincing a little as she rediscovered her bruises.

“Poe,” she murmured, recognizing him.

“Wrong again; that’s my name,” he grinned. “What’s yours?”

“Kix,” she said, smiling back in a hazy way.

“Good. Where are you from?”

“I...don’t know.”

“Okay, where did you live before here?”

“Cantonica.”

“Correct! Congrats. You’ve won the prize of getting to go back to sleep instead of me dragging you to medbay for another scan.”

“Yay,” she muttered, and before he had sat back down on Rose’s cot, she was snoring softly.

* * *

The second time Poe was supposed to wake Kix up, he shouldn’t have.

“NO!”

“Kix?” he jumped off the cot, dropping his datapad. She was thrashing and kicking wildly, clearly in the throes of a nightmare.

 _Should I try to wake her up?_ he wondered anxiously, flexing his fingers, and when her already-injured head moved dangerously close to the edge of the nearby desk, he threw caution to the wind.

“Hey, Kix, you’re -”

 _Should’ve followed your gut, idiot_ , said his inner voice, which sounded distractingly like Leia, as he dared to touch her arm. Her eyes flew open, saw him but did not recognize him, and then squeezed shut tight again. Her body went rigid with fear, fists clenching at her sides.

“No, no, no,” she moaned. “Please, don’t. Please, don’t, please -”

“What the pit is going on?” said a voice, and Poe turned to see Rose at the door. He rounded on her like a drowning man to a raft.

“Nightmare,” he bit out, panicked. Rose took one look at Kix and leapt into action.

“Hey, hey, you’re alright,” she said in a calming voice, going to sit next to her on the cot. “You’re safe.”

Kix practically threw herself into Rose’s arms.

“Don’t let him - don’t let him touch me -” she babbled, and Poe felt his heart drop to his feet. Quietly, he slipped out of the room and into the hallway, where he leaned against the wall and sank to the floor, trying not to listen to Rose reassuring Kix over and over again that she was safe; that ‘the man’ was not going to touch her.

After a few minutes, Rose walked into the hallway and shut the door behind her. She sat down next to Poe and took his hand.

“Poe, that wasn’t your -”

“I know,” he cut her off in a tone of voice that clearly still assumed responsibility.

Rose sighed and squeezed his hand more tightly. 

“We have to win,” she said in a thick voice. “After all - this.”

“We will.” He leaned over and dropped a light, brotherly kiss on top of her head. “Take her to the medbay next hour. Probably better for her to get some more scans and be woken by...well, not me. And not you; you need to sleep.”

Rose nodded tiredly. “Leia gave me the morning off.”

“Good.” He patted her leg and stood. “See you tomorrow, Engineer Commander.”

“Night, Poe.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Poe,” said Kix, and he turned to look at her with a resigned expression on his face.
> 
> “If you’re about to apologize for literally anything, save your breath,” he told her.
> 
> Kix huffed out a breath of laughter. Her eyes traveled from his face to the shoulder of his jacket, where her blood still stained it.
> 
> “It’s just that I...I’ve never had someone. Or anything,” she said, making zero sense, but he seemed to understand.
> 
> “Well, now you do,” he said simply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Some mild descriptions of torture.

The night had been a confused, painful blur and when Kix woke up in the morning she felt distinctly unrested. 

“Good morning, guest,” whirred a voice, and Kix realized there was a red-and-gray meddroid holding a bowl over her head.

“Uh, hi?” she said.

“Would you like breakfast?”

“Uh...where am I?”

“You are in the medical bay of the Resistance’s most current hideout. Engineer Commander Tico brought you here at 0100 hours for extra scans and observation. Breakfast?”

Kix sat up, warily dodging the bowl.

“Where’s Poe?”

“Flight Commander Dameron is in a closed-door meeting with General Organa until 0900 hours. The general has requested you wait here until it is finished. Breakfast?”

“Oh. Uh, okay -” began Kix, but the droid had already set the bowl down on her bedside table with unnecessary force. The steaming, unappetizing brown mush slopped over the side and onto the tray.

“Thanks,” said Kix, unenthusiastically. “Do you have -”

The droid slammed a metal spork next to the bowl and then stalked away. Kix watched it go, eyes wide, wondering if it was always like that or if it just didn’t like her. She leaned over and sniffed cautiously at the mush before taking a small, tentative bite. Luckily, it tasted better than it looked.

When she was halfway through the bowl, she noticed a soft beeping coming from the doorway. She looked up to see another droid - this one small, spherical, and orange-and-white - peeking at her there.

“Hi?” she said, curious. The droid beeped again in a friendly way and rolled into the room.

“I’m sorry; I can’t understand you,” said Kix, but the droid didn’t seem to mind. He chittered cheerfully at her, minutely revolving on the spot to keep his balance.

“I’m Kix,” she said. “You must be BB-something, right?”

“Eight,” said a voice she recognized. “His name is BB-8.”

She looked up to see Poe standing in the doorway, hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

“Hi,” she smiled, and then looked back at the little droid. “This guy belong to you?” she asked, motioning at Poe.

BB-8 made a metallic laughing kind of sound that Kix could understand just fine.

“Watch it, wise guy,” said Poe, but he strode into the room and patted the droid on its round head. “Get outta here while she’s healing up. Nosy,” he admonished as the droid rolled away. It stopped at the door and made a trumpeting kind of sound in farewell.

“Cute,” Kix grinned.

“Don’t let him hear you,” Poe warned. “Got a big enough ego already.”

“Like owner, like droid?”

Poe raised his eyebrows in amused disbelief. There were dark circles under his eyes.

“You definitely haven’t known me long enough to know the size of my ego.”

“It’s precautionary. Gotta take you down a couple pegs after telling you I didn’t want to get rid of you last night.”

The amused expression on his face morphed into something more complicated. 

“Yeah, about that. Do you remember last night?”

Kix was puzzled.

“Not clearly...why?”

Poe pursed his lips and said nothing. She couldn’t understand why he was acting so worried until it hit her.

“Oh,” said Kix in a small voice. “Did I have a night terror?”

“Yeah...I think so.”

“Druk,” she said, leaning back against the pillows. “I’m sorry, Poe. Must’ve scared the daylights out of you. Or Rose.”

He folded his arms.

“Has it happened before?”

“Yeah, when I was a kid. Used to be a lot worse - one time I nearly got shot for desertion when a guard thought I was trying to jump off the ninth floor of a Star Destroyer. Sleepwalking.”

“What?” he said, horrified, though Kix knew he had heard her perfectly well.

“First home I can remember,” she said, bitterly.

Poe’s head dropped toward the ground and he leaned a hip against the bed.

“Have you thought any more about joining the Resistance?” he asked, still inspecting the floor.

“Yes,” she said, trying to keep nerves out of her voice. “I know I’m not a pilot or a mechanic or anything but I want to pitch in where I -”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Poe interrupted bluntly.

There was a long moment of surprised silence.

“Oh,” said Kix. “Can I ask...why?”

Poe took in a deep breath.

“I will be the first to admit that I’m not the model of healthy coping mechanisms for dealing with the things I’ve seen or - or experienced,” he said, flatly. “But Leia thinks - and after last night, I don’t disagree with her - that you need some time and...and maybe some help before you’re cleared to serve.”

Kix’s cheeks began to flood with color.

“So, what,” she said angrily. “Are you trying to tell me that because I had a nightmare, I’m not fit to mop the floors? Because if you are, you must not have been paying attention yesterday or you might have noticed I’ve been trained my whole damn life to do exactly that - and more - in way worse conditions than this -“

“And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t do it!” Poe said loudly, holding his hands up, palms toward her. “At least, not yet. Just hear me out, okay?”

Kix clenched her jaw and glared at him, making a sarcastic gesture for him to continue.

“Kix, last night, you had a nightmare and I tried to wake you up. You saw me and reacted like - like I was going to hurt you or...” he shut his eyes tightly and shook his head before grounding out the rest of his sentence like he was talking through a mouthful of glass. “Like I was going to do...something else.”

All the blood drained out of Kix’s face. Her hands went numb.

“And Maker, Kix, none of that - the dream or your reaction or the reasons for it - none of it is your fault. From what Finn has told me and from what we already know about the First Order, they use the Force in a bad way, to control non-conforming troops, workers, slaves. For conditioning and behavior modification. Don’t they?”

Kix couldn’t move or speak. Poe dropped heavily into the seat next to her bed.

“I’ve had the dark side of the Force used to extract information out of my head before. Just once. And it was the most painful, horrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. I don’t even think it took that long and I...it still wakes me up at night,” he admitted.

Kix managed to draw in half a breath. Her face felt numb, now, too.

“I don’t know how you are still alive today after a lifetime of that kind of torture. And I mean truly alive, Kix, with fire enough to get pissed at someone you haven’t known for more than a day, whose job is to come in here and tell you that the general of the Resistance wants you to have time to heal both physically and mentally before you volunteer to put yourself in incredible amounts of danger for the sake of people you’ll never meet.”

He paused and shook his head in disbelief.

“Do you know how rare that kind of bravery is?”

Kix swallowed hard and chanced a look at him. His warm brown ( _should be illegal_ , she thought) eyes were glassy with emotion as they looked back at her. He began to reach for her hand, but paused.

“Can I?” he asked, his voice pitched lower than normal.

Kix felt her lips form the word ‘yes,’ but no sound came out. Poe heard it, though, and gently, very gently, as if he expected her to snatch it away from him, he took her work-roughened hand in both of his own.

“Leia doesn’t want you mopping floors. She agrees with me that you would be an excellent candidate for reconnaissance and rescue. There are literally hundreds of people out there who have been kidnapped by the First Order so they can’t support the Resistance.”

“Like the senator,” Kix hoarsely whispered.

“Exactly. Yawu is an old ally of Leia’s, and now her family is as good as dead. We need help saving as many as we can. You probably know more than the rest of the Resistance combined about how they’re being hidden and controlled, and how to act so you don’t arouse suspicion.”

Kix chewed the inside of her bottom lip.

“I think I could do that.”

“You might have to put the things you took off yesterday back on. Occasionally. The collar, no shoes. You’d have to act like the slave they tried to make you,” he said, very seriously.

Involuntarily, Kix shuddered.

“It would mean nearly certain capture, torture...maybe worse,” he continued ruthlessly. “It would be very dangerous. More dangerous than what I do, for sure.”

Silence fell between them for a long moment.

“You sound like you’re trying to talk me out of this,” she said. “Why?”

“Because you deserve to know all the risks before you make a decision.”

Kix drew in a deep breath and then fixed Poe with a searching gaze.

“And what makes you think I’d be good at it, anyway?”

He tilted his head to the side and one dark, stray curl obeyed gravity in a way its fellows did not, so that it fell across his forehead.

“I have gut feelings about people,” he told her. “You feel...dangerous, to me.”

Kix huffed out a disbelieving sound. She motioned to her prone form in the bed, her bruised face, her shaking hands.

“Dangerous?”

He eyes seemed to ensnare her the way they had the first time they saw one another.

“Very,” he said. “And I like dangerous people. Especially when they’re on my side.”

This was followed by a very taut silence - one Kix felt powerless to interrupt. It seemed like Poe couldn’t move, either - or was he leaning toward her...?

“Guest, are you finished with your breakfast?”

Poe jumped and hit his head on the overhead lamp, cursing.

“What the pit, A3?” he demanded.

“Apologies, Commander,” said the meddroid in a very non-apologetic voice, and it scooped up the bowl and spork. Kix watched it go, trying not to laugh as Poe rubbed his head, scowling.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “That damn droid doesn’t like me.”

“Oh, so it’s not just me,” said a Kix. “That’s a relief.”

“What did he do?” asked Poe, like he was going to go give the droid a dress down.

“Nothing,” she said, quickly. “So...what is it Leia wants me to do?”

Poe reached for a communicator device on his wrist.

“I’m going to need some help explaining that. Do you mind if I invite someone in?”

Wary, Kix sat up straighter, wondering if someone had been listening at the door.

“Are they already here?”

“No,” he said, very firmly. “No one knows about last night except for me, Rose, and Leia. And I didn’t give explicit details to Leia. She just has the general idea.”

“Leia has the _general_ idea?” Kix asked, trying to bite back a smile. Poe tore his eyes away from the communicator and stared at her incredulously.

“Was that a pun? Seriously? In the middle of this very depressing conversation - you actually made a _pun_?” he demanded.

Kix grinned immoderately.

“Unbelievable. That was the worst joke I have ever heard in my entire life,” said Poe. “You should be ashamed.”

“Am I interrupting?” asked a light voice, and they looked up to see a willowy woman with a commanding air, dressed in white wraps, standing uncertainly at the door. Poe motioned her inside.

“Kix, this is Rey. Rey, Kix.”

“It’s very nice to meet you,” said Rey, shaking Kix’s hand and smiling so genuinely that Kix believed her.

“Hi,” said Kix.

“Rey is a Jedi knight,” said Poe, matter-of-factly.

Kix’s mouth dropped open.

“Not yet,” said Rey, shooting him a look. “I’m in training. And to be honest, I don’t know if there will be any more...well, it doesn’t matter. Long story.”

Kix managed to close her mouth and Rey looked uncertainly at Poe. 

“I don’t really know where to start,” she said.

“Leia thinks that if the dark side of the Force can be manipulated to torture and brainwash people, the light side might be able to heal them,” said Poe, as if this were a logical explanation.

Kix blinked a couple times.

“That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah,” laughed Rey, nervously. “General Organa is Force-sensitive but she never formally trained as a padawan. Just some stuff she did with her brother. So her ideas are a little more...unconventional. And she’s the one training me, now. So I guess I’m a little unconventional, too.”

“Leia’s also the smartest person I know,” added Poe.

“And royal,” said Rey, as if this settled the matter.

“So...has it been done?” asked Kix. “Successfully?”

They both nodded.

“Only with one person. Well, I’ve only tried with one person. My friend, Finn,” Rey explained. “But it’s a little...um...intimate,” she continued, blushing.

Poe snorted. Rey punched him in the arm and he winced, rubbing at it.

“Not like that,” she said, ears pink. “I just mean...when we try it, it’s hard for me not to see...everything. Finn is one of my closest friends in the world so there aren’t a lot of things he won’t tell me, so it’s not that bad. But you, um...” she trailed off. “If you agree to trying it, there’s not really anything I can do to, uh...not see. Everything.”

“Oh.”

Kix looked at Poe, uncertain. His face, for once, was unreadable.

“The offer is open to you whether you make the decision to join or not,” said Rey. “The general made that very clear. And I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I'd never, ever reveal anything I see in your mind. To anyone.”

“But the offer _is_ mandatory if you want to join, Kix,” said Poe, quietly. “Leia wants to win this war for the good of the galaxy, but she also wants good for the people who help her to do it.” 

Kix picked at the blanket, thinking.

“Can I just...try it, first? To see if...I dunno, it will work?”

“Absolutely,” affirmed Rey.

Kix took a deep breath.

“Okay,” she said.

The slow, glorious smile that spread over Poe Dameron’s face at her answer was worth the risk, Kix thought.

“Great,” Rey said. “I’ll meet you tomorrow morning at the mess for breakfast and then we’ll get started.”

“Okay,” said Kix. “Where - ?”

“That brings us to our next order of business,” said Poe. “Tour. C’mon.”

Rey gave an awkward little wave at the door and left quickly while Kix got out of bed and (with a bit of difficulty but no help from Poe, who seemed to understand she wanted to do it herself) tied on her boots, which she supposed Rose or the meddroid has taken off of her last night.

“Ready?” he asked, already walking to the door.

“Poe,” said Kix, and he turned to look at her with a resigned expression on his face.

“If you’re about to apologize for literally anything, save your breath,” he told her.

Kix huffed out a breath of laughter. Her eyes traveled from his face to the shoulder of his jacket, where her blood still stained it.

“It’s just that I...I’ve never had someone. Or anything,” she said, making zero sense, but he seemed to understand.

“Well, now you do,” he said simply.

* * *

Training with Rey was...weird.

On the first morning, Rey sat down across the table from her, doubling the stares and whispers Kix had already been getting from nearly everyone in the mess.

“Don’t eat anything heavy,” she warned brightly. Kix paused in scooping another spoonful of mush to her mouth.

“Why?” she asked, warily.

“Training,” said Rey, as if it were self-explanatory. Kix looked over at Finn, who was sitting next to her.

“Why?” she asked again, but Finn only shrugged and smiled.

“Training,” he repeated. Without looking up from her bowl of fruit, Rey handed a piece to him in thanks. He took it without comment and popped it in his mouth.

“Have fun,” he said around the bite, wiping green juice from his chin. He stood and left.

“C’mon,” said Rey, her own mouth still full. “Let’s get started.” She grabbed Kix by the hand and pulled her out of the mess hall and out into the green valley of Iopethus they were currently calling home.

Rey began with physical warm ups - jogging, calisthenics, and more. Kix was winded at the end of the first half hour but not terribly so. In fact, she felt a little _more_ winded when she saw Poe walking by with a squadron of mechanics and engineers, bent on reaching the opposite side of the field where several stolen ships were parked. He caught sight of her and waved, a small, dark-haired figure in an orange flight suit.

Next, Rey had them both sit on the damp, springy grass across from one another.

“This is hard to explain, but I’ll try my best,” she continued. “Okay, so...you know about the Force, right?”

“Yes,” said Kix, trying to keep anxiety out of her tone, but Rey noticed.

“Firstly, I want you to know that I will never, ever use the Force to hurt you,” she said, very firmly. “If your upbringing was anything like Finn’s, you have probably only seen the dark side of the Force, not the good it can bring.”

Kix nodded again.

“The Jedi believed the Force belonged to them,” said Rey dispassionately. “But it did not. It is the energy that keeps balance in and between all things, living and dead. It outlived the Jedi order; it will outlive the galaxy itself.”

Rey paused and looked more intently (if that were even possible) at Kix.

“I believe the Force can be felt, and possibly even accessed by all living creatures, provided they are trained,” she said. “Even by those who might not have been labeled as Force-sensitive by the Jedi.”

Kix blinked.

“Really?”

Rey nodded.

“I have some ancient texts that I recovered from the first Jedi temple,” she said. “They contain truths the order tried to control over the course of thousands of years in favor of keeping others from accessing the Force.”

“So how did they determine who could be trained as a Jedi and who could not?”

Rey waved her hand. “It was stupid. And doesn’t matter. The point is, I believe those who have been modified successfully by the Force (like you) might also be among those who can access it in some way. Probably not to the same extent as a Jedi, but enough to feel it, maybe even use it in life-or-death situations. Because their modifications don’t always work on everyone, right? Only some people.”

Kix thought for a moment about other storm troopers and slaves she had seen disobey and escape on their own; those she had always been envious of; had longed to be like.

“I just thought I was weak,” she admitted.

“It’s just a theory,” said Rey, reaching forward and squeezing her hands. “But even if I’m wrong, Kix - you’re not weak.”

Rey smiled kindly at her.

“Alright, I’ve got to ask you some questions you probably won’t like,” she continued. “But I need honest answers if we’re going to move forward.”

Kix took in a deep breath, steeling herself.

“How did it work?” Rey asked.

“How did what work?”

“How were you punished?”

Kix swallowed. She wanted to curl in on herself and lie down in the grass.

“There was a man - a First Order officer,” she corrected herself. “When I was a child. He could - make me afraid. He would put things in my head that would...hurt.”

“Was the man always around, in case you disobeyed?” asked Rey, and Kix suddenly realized she was looking at the man - the cool, temperate valley had disappeared. She was nine years old, kneeling in front of him. He was laughing cruelly.

“No,” she whimpered, but she felt Rey’s hands on her own, steadying her.

“He won’t hurt you this time,” Rey said calmly. “I promise. Stay with me. Show me.”

Kix took in another breath - this one stuttering and shallow. She felt the beginnings of a panic attack coming on.

“Stay with me,” said Rey again. “Think of something calming.”

 _Breathe with me,_ said her memory of Poe, and she felt the cool surface of his leather jacket pressed against her bloodied forehead; felt his hands on her shoulders.

“Good,” said Rey. “Breathe with him.”

It helped. Kix drew in a full breath, and then another, and another, and another.

“Back in,” murmured Rey, and then Poe was gone. The man towered above her.

“Show me,” said Rey, and, feeling oddly detached from the man and the little girl now, Kix did.

The man jerked the metal collar on the girl’s neck with a heavy chain. She winced and crawled forward, trying not to cry. Then the man pulled upward with the chain and fixed it to the freezing stone wall.

“You’ll stand here until your master calls for you again, little one,” he growled sadistically. The number of links connecting the collar and the notch on the wall was too few; the girl was forced to stand on her tiptoes; she could barely breathe as the metal pressed mercilessly into her throat. The man stood in front of her, one hand raised threateningly over her head, muttering to himself but not touching her.

In Kix’s memory, the whole ordeal had felt like hours; with Rey at her side in this odd, detached state, Kix was able to tell that it had been less than half an hour before the man seemed to run out of energy. He slumped forward, catching himself on the wall, and unhooked the chain.

The girl fell to the floor, wheezing and gasping, as the man nudged her with the toe of his black boot.

“You’ll think of that next time, won’t you, you little brat,” he sneered. He sounded exhausted, a detail Kix had not realized until now. “One good jerk of that collar and you’ll fall right back in line.”

Kix did cry out, then, and with a shock like being deluged with a bucket of ice water, she found herself back in the valley, sitting across from Rey. She fell forward, her breakfast heaving in her stomach, and Rey caught her shoulders.

“Breathe,” she said, and she mimicked Poe, settling Kix’s forehead into her own shoulder. “Breathe with me. In for 5, ready?”

It worked. Kix breathed again and Rey let her go so that she could sit up.

“Well done,” said Rey. “Finn threw up the first time.”

Kix exhaled harshly, still not entirely sure she wouldn’t follow Finn’s example.

“So am I right to assume you only saw that man a few times?”

Kix nodded.

“Triggers,” Rey murmured. “They install triggers in all their weapons.”

Kix swallowed hard.

“What do you mean?”

“There aren’t enough recognizably Force-sensitive people in the world for them to follow all the troops and slaves around, torturing people who step out of line,” said Rey, matter-of-factly. “So the First Order uses them to create deliberate triggers in non-conforming people so they can be punished even when the Force-sensitive people aren’t there. Yours was the collar.”

Kix blinked in amazement.

“I...I never realized,” she said. Rey nodded.

“It’s a fairly straightforward trigger, but it’s probably not the only one. Not after so many years. It’s a good place to start, though.”

Rey sat back on the heels of her hands, looking at Kix consideringly.

“So what do you think? You want to continue?”

Something fierce and alien seemed to have stirred inside Kix - a spark of something she didn’t recognize.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”


	4. Chapter 4

The days began to blur together into a haze of exhaustion. Every morning, Kix ate breakfast with Rey and Finn, trained with Rey all morning, ate lunch, and then she was in stealth and close-quarters combat training with Yama Dex, her future teammate, in the afternoons. Yama had left the First Order in much the same way Kix had, turning her coat to help her rescuers after she had been badly beaten by a superior officer. Said officer had been in charge of the list of wrongfully captured Resistance sympathizers, and Leia believed that between Kix and Yama, they stood a good chance of rescuing many lives.

About two weeks into her training, Kix found herself somehow wedged into a seat next to Poe in the mess hall at dinner time, surrounded by his raucous squadron. They had returned that afternoon after a four-day mission and successful rescue of five prisoners; no lives had been lost, and spirits were high.

“How’re you holding up?” Poe asked her quietly while the rest of his crew was busy ragging on Snap for something that had happened on the mission. “You look...worn out.”

Kix smiled and shrugged.

“I am. But I think I’m doing okay. Rey thinks I’m making good progress.”

His eyes traced the outline of her face, where the swelling was completely gone and only the barest shadows of green and yellow remained.

“Bruises are healing up well.”

“Yeah,” said Kix, a little awkwardly. His close inspection made her feel stupidly nervous.

“Wait, wait -” said Karé, loudly interrupting the Snap-pile-on-session and pulling Kix and Poe out of their private conversation. “Kix, you did what during training yesterday?”

Startled, Kix looked around.

“Huh?” she said, very intelligently.

“Is Yama lying?” asked Karé, grinning. “Did you rack Smizzon?”

Embarrassed but a little proud, Kix ducked her head.

“Not my fault he wasn’t wearing a cup,” she muttered, and to her surprise, everyone (including Poe) began to laugh loudly. Smizzon, a new humanoid Resistance recruit with extensive wrestling experience and an impressive height of seven feet, winced overdramatically and shifted his seat in memory, for her benefit.

“It was a glancing blow, but a good one. Oughta change your name to Kickass,” he said, winking at her. Several hands rained down on her back, including Poe’s - though his lingered a bit longer so that she looked back at him.

He was smirking in a warm, proud, knowing kind of way that made Kix’s stomach flip.

“Dangerous,” he said in her ear.

* * *

Kix managed not to have a panic attack for a full month of training, but the first morning they tried to modify her Forced obedience, it hit her like a battering ram.

“Stand,” Rey told her, holding her palm out over Kix’s head. Kix was seated on the damp grass, trying her best to make her legs move. 

_Sit_ , said the overwhelming Force in her mind.

“Stand,” Rey encouraged. “Disobey, Kix. You can do it.”

Kix tried to flex her toes inside the wonderful, worn boots, but she couldn’t feel them. It felt like there was an anvil in her lap.

 _Sit_ , commanded the Force.

“I -” Kix gasped, feeling numb and cold. “I _can’t_.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I -” whispered Kix, and then interrupted herself by throwing up.

Immediately, Rey lifted her hand and the immense weight of the Force disappeared. She dived forward and gathered Kix’s hair behind her head, patting her on the back until she had regained control.

“I’m sorry,” Kix gasped. Rey squatted in front of her and gave her a handkerchief.

“You still have Finn beat on the vomit record,” she said, trying to lift Kix’s spirits. Kix wiped her mouth and exhaled shakily.

“Ugh,” she said, noticing that some of the sick had splattered on her clothes.

“You need a day off,” Rey told her firmly. “Shower, lunch, bed. I’ll let Smiz know Yama will be training alone this afternoon.”

Kix managed to shower, re-dress, and open her unit door to the hallway to go to lunch before the buzzing in her mind finally caught up to her.

And then she realized she was sitting on the floor of the hallway, head between her knees, hyperventilating.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, trying to regain some semblance of oxygen and sense, before she felt a large, warm presence sit down beside her.

“Rey told me,” said Finn, without her having to ask. “Are you okay being touched?”

Unable to articulate an answer, Kix just twitched one shoulder in what she hoped he would recognize as a shrug.

He did, and put a comforting hand on her upper back. Her shoulders relaxed minutely, so he kept it there. It helped.

“I know how you feel,” Finn murmured, and Kix understood that he actually, really did. 

That helped, too.

* * *

When Poe rounded the corner of the hallway in which Kix lived, on his way to the mess, he was in high spirits.

“Hey, Kickass!” he called, grinning, until he caught sight of Finn sitting next to a crumpled figure with auburn hair. Finn looked up, face grim.

“Kix?” asked Poe in alarm, and he rushed forward, but Finn shook his head and waved him on.

“Later,” he mouthed at him.

Something fierce and jealous and unexpected in its strength erupted in Poe’s chest as he noted Finn’s hand on Kix’s back.

“What happened?” he asked, but Finn scowled protectively and waved him on again. Kix didn’t even seem to hear him. Not wanting to upset her, Poe nodded hesitantly at Finn and walked on, trying not to look back at the pair when he reached the end of the hall.

* * *

Kix slept dreamlessly all afternoon and woke when the triple red suns of Iopethus were drowsing behind the mountains that surrounded the Resistance base. Only two of them regularly set beyond the horizon, so there was always some faint light bathing the valley, even at night. Kix liked it - the constant light helped her to differentiate her nightmares from reality whenever she woke herself in what would have been on other planets the darkest watches.

Feeling as though she was recently recovered from a sudden, violent illness, Kix stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her as silently as she could. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she looked up from the ground to see Poe standing there uncertainly, his fist raised to knock, holding a to go box from the mess.

“Maker, Poe,” she said, putting a hand to her chest as though the action could slow her heartbeat.

“Sorry,” he apologized, and awkwardly held out the box. “Dinner?”

Kix took it.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I just thought you might not want to be around people,” he rushed on, rubbing the back of his neck. “After…”

She gave him a weak smile, embarrassed.

“Yeah, I guess Rey told you,” she said, but he shook his head.

“No, she wouldn’t. And neither would Finn.”

“Oh,” said Kix, surprised. Poe was still dressed in his orange flight suit, full of nervous energy, tapping one foot and teetering on the edge of a question.

“Do you want to eat now?” he asked. “Or could I maybe talk you into something else?”

Kix quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Something else?”

“Rose’s crew finished fixing up an old TIE we stole from Bracca a couple months ago,” he said. “I was wondering if you maybe wanted to take it out with me. They’re pretty fun to fly...and it has an extra seat where my X-wing doesn’t. I mean, technically it’s the gunner’s position. But you don’t have to shoot anything. Obviously. Since we’re...here,” he rambled.

Kix smiled.

“On one condition,” she said, and his face brightened immediately.

“Anything,” he replied.

“I want to eat this,” Kix opened the box and sniffed at the slab of meatloaf, “on top of the mountain range. Maybe that’ll make it taste better.”

Poe scoffed, grinning.

“Easy. Grab your coat,” he said.

* * *

Poe snagged a bite of Kix’s meatloaf.

“Guess the view didn’t really work,” he lamented, chewing it. They were sitting beside one another on a boulder on top of the highest place he could safely land the TIE fighter.

Kix laughed and shrugged.

“It’s not as bad as some things,” she said, a faraway look in her tired eyes. Poe thought the muted crimson light of the partially set suns made her glow like the embers of a fire. Then he realized he was staring and promptly stopped.

“I guess that’s true. My mom used to make this awful stew,” he said fondly, shaking his head. “It tasted like expired nutrient paste.”

“Yeah?” asked Kix, a little wistfully, and he nodded, looking down at her.

“She was a great woman - amazing pilot - but a bad cook,” he laughed.

“What was her name?”

“Shara,” said Poe, and the familiar ache of his missing mother filled his chest.

“That’s pretty,” said Kix, and he felt her gaze on him.

“What happened to her?”

“She died,” he said thickly, and left it at that. Kix set down her box of food and took his hand, threading her freezing fingers in his own.

“I’m sorry, Poe.”

He nodded again, swallowing hard. Kix let the silence settle into something comfortable before she asked: “Is she the one who taught you to fly?”

One corner of his mouth turned upward.

“Yes,” he said, proudly. “She used to joke that I could fly her A-wing before I could run without falling on my face.”

“I believe her,” said Kix fervently, and just for a moment, her words made Shara alive again, warm and strong and solid.

They sat companionably in silence after this statement and Poe wondered if he dared ask her about her own mother. Did she remember her? And if she did, were they good memories? But then he cut his eyes over to her exhausted profile and decided against it.

“I’m sorry today was hard,” he offered hesitantly. Kix tore her gaze away from the valley below and smiled at him.

“Not your fault.”

“I mean, kind of,” he replied. “I’m the one who encouraged you to train with Rey.”

“I’m glad you did,” she said, her voice honest. “I wasn’t truly decided before I tried. Now I am.”

Poe straightened.

“You are?”

“Yes,” said Kix. “I have a meeting with General Organa tomorrow morning.”

Poe exhaled. They stared at one another for a moment. Kix was clearly waiting for his response, but the only honest one he had was that of anxious protectiveness.

“Can I come with you?” came out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

She frowned in confusion.

“I think D’Acy will be my commander,” she said. “Right?”

“Yes,” Poe said, voice hollow. “Yeah, she will.”

Kix’s mouth quirked up at one side, looking at him a little knowingly.

“I’ll be careful, Poe,” she said.

He cleared his throat and looked out over the valley.

“‘Course you will,” he said, a little gruffly.

* * *

Poe was there in the morning, anyway. Kix tried not to smile too deliberately at him when she entered Leia’s war room and found him standing there with Commander D’Acy and General Organa.

“Please raise your right hand,” said the general, and Kix did so, repeating the oath line-by-line. She tried to keep her eyes trained on Leia’s face, since Poe’s was too distracting.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” said Leia, shaking her hand. “Please report to Commander D’Acy for your first assignment.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Kix, smiling back at her as the general left the room.

“Welcome, Lieutenant,” said D’Acy. “Please report to Rey at 0900 hours today for training, and to Captain Smizzon at 1300 hours, as you have thus far. I would like you to continue this training between your missions for the foreseeable future.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tomorrow, however,” continued D’Acy, “you will report to the hangar at 0500 hours for your first reconnaissance mission with Lieutenant Dex, Captain Finn, and Commander Dameron.”

Kix looked quickly at Poe, who was standing at ease, his hands behind his back and pursing his lips in a very slight, self-satisfied way that made her suspicious.

“I was under the impression that I would be assigned to Wexley’s squadron, ma’am.”

D’Acy nodded. “Yes, you will be. But Wexley left early this morning on an emergency rescue mission and probably will not be back for a couple days, and General Organa doesn’t wish for the prisoners on Traf 2 to be lost in the Hutt’s trade routes. Better to go now and retrieve them before Qeepa has a chance to scatter them throughout the system.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Kix, and then she looked expectantly at Poe.

“Report to the hangar at 1900 hours for your briefing, Lieutenant,” he said solemnly. “Please inform Lieutenant Dex and don’t be late.”

“Yes, sir,” said Kix, fighting the urge to say something smart as Poe had the audacity to _wink_ at her when D’Acy wasn’t looking.


	5. Chapter 5

Kix tried her best to pay attention during the briefing, but damn it all if Poe wasn’t doing his unintentional (or perhaps intentional) best to distract her.

He was wearing his uniform, sans jacket, sleeves rolled up to his forearms as he gesticulated calmly, manipulating the hologram in front of them with practiced ease. _It’s the eyelids_ , Kix decided, as he looked down to push a button to switch the view back to macro. Poe’s eyes, while warm and kind and fringed by long, dark lashes, were made all the more intense by heavy lids and that never seemed to _quite_ open all the way.

Yama, a short, sharp-featured girl with frizzy red hair and her current teammate, raised her hand and snapped Kix out of her ogling.

“You don’t have to do that, Lieutenant,” said Poe, smiling, and Yama blushed. She was young; much younger than Kix (at least, Kix thought so, not being entirely sure how old she actually was), and had only become legally able to join the New Republic Navy’s Resistance division a week before. Kix wasn’t sure that her not being of age would have kept her out of the fight, anyway. Yama was a spitfire, smart as a whip with an eidetic memory. Leia probably figured keeping the teenager in line with navy regulations was better than without.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I was just wondering about the possibility of recovery tomorrow, should the chance present itself.”

Poe nodded slowly and bit his lower lip, thinking.

 _That’s just unfair_ , though Kix, trying not to let her gaze flicker down to his mouth.

“If the Hutts agree to our demands, we will,” he said. “But if Qeepa does say yes, she’s an idiot. Reconnaissance protocol dictates recovery of our asset - you, Yama - before we mount a rescue in the event the Hutts do not agree. We’ll do our best tomorrow.”

All three of them - Yama, Finn, and Kix - nodded in affirmation.

“Good. You’re dismissed,” said Poe. “Get some sleep.”

Yama and Finn bade them both goodnight and Kix turned to follow them, but Poe’s voice held her back.

“Kix?”

She turned, a little too eagerly.

“Yes?”

He was beautiful, standing there in the dim, rubescent light, hands shoved in the pockets of his trousers.

“I need to apologize,” he said. Kix blinked, confused.

“For what?”

“I was supposed to go on the mission this morning instead of Snap,” he said. “But I pulled rank.”

“Oh,” she said. “Why?”

“I was worried about you.”

Kix narrowed her eyes.

“You were _worried_ about me?”

He sighed.

“I know,” he started, but she shook her head and strode up to him, poking him in the chest.

“I haven’t been here long, Poe, but I know enough to recognize that _that_ is completely unprofessional and, frankly, rude to me _and_ to Snap. If _your_ superior officers think I’m ready, then who are you to say that you know better?”

“I know,” he said again, trying to placate her, but she was on a roll now.

“And really, Poe - winking at me in front of my commanding officer during my first official briefing? I’m in the Resistance now; you can’t keep treating me like you have been -”

“I _know_ ,” he repeated himself, but this time his tone caught her off guard; it had dropped an octave. She suddenly realized she was fewer than ten inches away from him. In fact, he was so close she could feel a wave of heat roll off of him as he looked down at her.

“You have my guarantee that I’ll be nothing but professional tomorrow.” His voice barely registered audibly; it was more of a vibration than anything else. “And every day after that, if you want me to.”

Kix swallowed.

“Good,” she whispered. _Damn bedroom eyes,_ she thought.

“0500, Lieutenant,” he murmured, and then he turned on his heel, picked up his jacket, and left without looking back.

* * *

At 0430, Kix met Yama in the hallway so they could spot check each other’s disguises. Yama was the one dressed as a slave this time; Kix in a forbidding First Order uniform, her long, wavy hair tied in a tight bun at the nape of her neck under the black hat.

“Good,” said Yama nervously, picking a piece of lint off of Kix’s shoulder. “Good.”

“Yama, breathe,” said Kix, putting her hands on either side of the teen’s head, pressing her endearing, flyaway hair to her sallow face. The girl had quickly become like a younger sister to her over the past month. “We’ve got this.”

Yama took in a deep, deep breath that seemed to lift her up onto her toes a few inches before she exhaled, sinking back down.

“We’ve got this,” she agreed, nodding.

They set off for the hangar, munching protein bars as they went.

“So what did the commander want last night?” asked Yama. Kix looked sharply over at her before swallowing her bite.

“Who, Poe?”

“What other commander was there?” said Yama, sarcastically.

Kix shrugged.

“Just wanted to talk to me further about the mission.”

“What did he say?” asked Yama, her tone curious and a little suspicious. “Isn’t he supposed to brief all of us with the same information?”

“Oh, um…” said Kix uncomfortably. “It wasn’t really about the mission. In that way. It was more...personal.”

“Hmm,” said Yama. They rounded the corner and traveled another thirty feet before Yama spoke again.

“Kix, you know what the base says about him, right?”

Kix tried to feign impatient indifference.

“You really shouldn’t listen to gossip, Dex,” she said.

“Apparently, like, a _third_ of the base is trying to sleep with him at any one time,” continued Yama, ignoring her. “According to Suralinda. And he’s technically your superior. Section 5, Article 4.4 of the New Repub -”

“Since when are you gossiping with Suralinda?” Kix asked, trying to change the subject.

“Fraternization between officers of different ranks isn’t allowed,” Yama plowed on as they reached the hangar bay. Kix silently took Yama’s protein bar wrapper and put it in the recycling bin next to the door.

“Yeah, I know, Yama. I don’t need an eidetic memory to remember the code of ethics we _both_ had to study,” she reminded the younger woman. “And you need to get your head back on straight and stop worrying about stuff that doesn’t matter. We’ve got a mission.”

Yama grabbed Kix’s wrist and looked at the time on her watch.

“We’re three minutes early,” she said smugly. “Plenty of time to talk -”

“Three minutes early means you’re two minutes late,” said Poe’s stern voice, and both women startled a bit to see him walk out from behind the freighter they were taking, already dressed in his stolen black First Order uniform. “In the future, you will be considered on time at five minutes before report. Both your superior officers are already onboard, Lieutenants. Let’s go.”

* * *

The flight to the moon of Traf 2 was silent and intense. Yama had taken one look at Poe and squeaked out a “Sorry, sir. Yes, sir,” before scurrying onboard. Kix hadn’t been able to look at him at all.

“Jumping to light speed in 3, 2, 1,” said Poe calmly, his eyes fixed on the deep black, and the ship shuddered forward without complaint.

When their destination appeared a few minutes later, Kix leaned over to Yama.

“Shoes,” she said, and Yama startled again. She was posing as a slave; Finn as a slave trader, a role Kix knew he was deeply uncomfortable with but had agreed to.

“Oh, right.” She bent to untie and shed them, her small toes flexing on the cold floor of the freighter. Looking at them, Kix felt a qualm of uneasiness pass through her middle, but she resolutely put it aside using the breathing technique Rey had helped her come up with.

Poe was flying low to the ground, keeping out of sight just above a river that was lined by thick trees on either shore. He gently guided the ship to land and then turned it off. All four of them were silent, listening intently for any commotion outside, but there was nothing.

“Phase 1, complete,” he said. “All teams go.”

* * *

Phase 2 went just as smoothly; Finn got a good price for Yama from Qeepa the Hutt, which would do nicely to support the Resistance. 

Poe didn’t say anything, but Kix could tell he was a little unnerved by the lack of things going wrong. They spent a tense four hours together behind the slave quarters in which Yama was being held; the daylight on Traf 2 only lasted for about six hours and they couldn’t commence Phase 3 until they had the cover of darkness.

“What do you see, Lieutenant?” Poe asked her quietly as they lay on their stomachs, peeking over the hill down to the heavily guarded building.

“Six guards,” Kix whispered. “All armed. Four around the building, and two between us and them. And I think there’s a tripwire twenty feet in front of us.”

Poe blinked and raised his head a fraction of an inch to check.

“Damn,” he said. “Good eye.”

When Finn finally reached them after observing the customary noon meal the Hutts required of all successful business deals without taking offense, he was thoroughly disgusted.

“The sooner we get her out of there, the better,” he growled. “I hate these kriffing slugs.”

“We’re on it, buddy,” Poe said, looking significantly at Kix, who had to swallow her heart back down into its proper place. “You keep watch. Our turn.”

* * *

“How dare you falsify these records to the First Order,” said Kix coldly to Qeepa, standing ramrod straight in front of the giant near-invertebrate. “You’ve been cheating your way out of the slave tax for the last six months.”

“We’re here to collect the stolen tax and the penalty on behalf of General Hux,” added Poe. “Or if you can’t pay that, we’re here to reclaim all of your current holdings.”

Qeepa grunted and her eyes rolled slowly back and forth over them. She grunted more loudly to her translator droid, who bent obediently to listen.

“Wise Qeepa does not wish to anger the Supreme Leader or the First Order,” said the droid. “She will give you three of her current six holdings to more than offset this grievous overlook.”

“No,” interjected Kix in what she hoped was a deadly voice. “You will give us all six or we will return with force.”

Qeepa grunted again, slavering at the corner of her wide, slack mouth.

“Mighty Qeepa demands to see your paperwork,” said the droid.

Kix made a sharp gesture with her hand to Poe.

“Go ahead, Captain,” she ordered, and she felt him brush her shoulder as he marched forward and handed the counterfeit papers to the droid. The droid, in turn, bent close to her master and murmured to her in the nonsensical Hutt language.

Poe came back to stand beside her, one hand resting threateningly on the blaster at his hip. Kix could see the tension in his jaw out of the corner of her eye.

“Magnificent Qeepa will oblige you her current holdings if you will agree not to monitor her trade routes in this quadrant for the next three months,” the droid finally said.

Kix couldn’t believe her ears.

“This can be arranged,” she said, stiffly. “But it cannot be officially recorded. Does the mighty Qeepa understand this?”

“Yes,” said the droid. “But if this deal is nullified by the First Order’s monitoring, the mighty Qeepa will see that the First Order’s surveillance troopers and officers are severely punished. This will mean war with the Hutt Clan.”

Kix straightened. She hoped Qeepa would take her smile as conspiratorial, not gleeful. What did she care if the Hutts picked a fight with Hux? Hopefully such an arrangement would result in fewer slave traders in the universe and depleted pockets and ranks for the First Order.

Qeepa grunted in what seemed like a pleased manner, so Kix bowed in the Hutt tradition.

“It is done,” she said. “You have my word.”

* * *

And just like that, minutes later, Yama and their five prisoners were presented to the two of them. Poe and Kix both drew their blasters and marched all six out of the yard and into the woods beyond at gunpoint.

“Anyone still watching?” Kix asked Yama out of the side of her mouth. Yama chanced a look back.

“Clear,” she said.

“Clear, Commander,” repeated Kix to Poe, who looked agitated.

“Too easy,” he muttered. “Where’s Finn?”

“That doesn’t look like a First Order ship to me,” said a nasal voice from the darkness, and they all whirled around to find three guards standing in front of a bound and gagged Finn. Two of them had their blasters trained on the group; the third had his pointed at Finn’s head.

Kix reacted without thinking. She shot the man pointing the gun at Finn’s head first. Poe was only a half second behind her; he took out the other two before they could make another sound.

All three men fell, hard, and Kix could only stand there, staring at them, until she realized that Poe was saying her name.

“ _Lieutenant!_ Kix!”

“What?” she said, dazed, adrenaline making her dizzy.

“Untie Dex,” he ordered. His eyes were concerned in the light of the guards’ fallen torches, crouched to free Finn’s hands and mouth.

Robotically, Kix untied Yama’s hands and the two of them unbound the rest of the prisoners, too. 

“Everyone on,” Kix heard herself saying, and the prisoners, too drugged to react much to anything going on around them, shuffled into the transport.

“You alright?” Yama asked her some time later, as they slipped into lightspeed.

“Fine,” Kix heard again in her own voice. It felt like someone else was speaking through her own mouth. “I’m fine.”

The next thing Kix could later recall was the gentle nudging of BB-8 at her knees. They were seated in Leia’s war room, debriefing Commander D’Acy on the successful mission, and everyone was looking at her.

“I’m sorry,” Kix said blankly. “Commander?”

“It was a job very well done, Lieutenant,” said D’Acy kindly, as if she understood her preoccupation. “You have tomorrow morning off. I would like you to report to Rey for training tomorrow afternoon at 1400 hours.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Kix, and then she found herself standing in front of her unit door, unable to remember the code to unlock it. Frowning, breathing quickly as if she had been running even though she knew perfectly well that she had not, she punched at it distractedly.

3-0-8-7? No, that wasn’t it. 3-0-7-7?

“Let me,” said a voice, and she watched as a sure hand punched in the code 3-7-8-7. The door slid open with a hiss.

“Oh,” she said in a funny, tinny sort of voice, and took a step inside. “Thanks.”

“Kix,” said Poe, lowly. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she answered. Something inside her was threatening to crumble. “I’m fine.”

Poe shook his head and stepped into the unit with her. He seemed to want to touch her, but he swallowed and didn’t.

“I can go get Finn,” he said. “He might be -”

“I’ve never killed anyone before,” she suddenly said, and the saying of it felt like she was spitting out something poisonous that had eaten away at her tongue. “Poe, I’ve -”

And then she was crying, sobbing, and Poe’s arms were around her. He smoothly maneuvered them further inside the room and waved the door shut with his foot.

“Shh,” he said, placing a hand behind her head and bringing it forward so that she was tucked under his chin. “Shh, Kix. You followed orders. You did right.”

“I killed him,” she whispered. Her arms felt impossibly heavy. She didn’t think she could have lifted them to return Poe’s embrace even if she tried.

“I know,” he said.

“I shouldn’t care about him,” Kix bit out. “He would’ve killed Finn. He would’ve killed you.”

“And he would’ve trafficked you and Yama,” said Poe. “If you hadn’t killed him, I would’ve.”

“I shouldn’t care,” Kix said again. She could barely hear the steady tattoo of Poe’s heart under her ear; her breath was too loud in her own ears. She was starting to hyperventilate.

“Druk,” she panted, trying to regain control of herself.

“What does Rey have you do? To calm down?” Poe asked her urgently. He was holding her so fiercely to his chest that the stubble on his face was pressing through the strands of her hair, prickling at her scalp. “Think, Kix.”

“She - she has me -” Kix gasped. “She has me remember th-this.”

She was so panicked that it didn’t even occur to her to be embarrassed.

“Remember what?” he asked.

“This,” Kix said, and her hands finally came to life enough that she was able to knot them in the back of his coat - that stupid, scratchy, fibrous black First Order coat he still hadn’t taken off.

“In f-for five,” she gulped. Instantly, he caught on.

“Out for five,” he finished. “Breathe with me.”

She tried. Over and over and over. Even after ten tries, it still wasn’t working.

“Kix,” Poe murmured. “You can do this. Focus on the out. Good. There you go. Do it again. Again.”

She did, shuddering, over and over, until Poe’s arms loosened enough for her to realize he’d been squeezing her so securely that it was easier to breathe once he did it. He didn’t let her go, however; merely looked down at her standing there in his arms, her face streaked and blotched.

“Why do I care?” she asked him miserably. “I shouldn’t care.”

His face was graver than she’d ever seen it as he replied.

“Because you’ve never killed someone before,” he said.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mild adult ~make out sesh~ ;)

Poe sat with her in silence for at least an hour that night. Two of the triple red suns had long since disappeared behind the mountains, bathing the room in a wine-colored glow, before she finally spoke.

“I guess you were right to be worried about my readiness,” she said thickly, wiping her nose.

“I wasn’t worried because of you specifically, Kix,” he explained. “It wasn’t that I thought you were unprepared or unskilled or anything. I always worry about new recruits the first few times they go out. Yama, too.”

“Yeah, well, Yama’s not the one losing her mind after what was technically a successful mission,” Kix said bitterly.

“Yama’s not the one who had her first kill today,” Poe corrected her firmly. “And she’s been in training nearly twice as long as you have. Also, I messaged Suralinda to go check on her. Like I came to check on you. And you’re not losing your mind.”

Kix didn’t reply to this; merely scoffed in a watery kind of way. Poe felt like he was balancing on the edge of some kind of precipice: on the one hand, he very much wanted to show Kix the depth of her own agency, to convince her of how strongly he believed in her ability to serve; on the other, he very much wanted to tell her that although he did indeed care about Yama’s wellbeing, it was nowhere near how much he cared about hers.

He took another look at her sitting across from him, staring out the window at the mountains. She was curled up like a Loth-cat, wearing black trousers and a black tank top (the First Order coat had been thrown to the side as soon as he had let her go earlier), and her hair had long since come loose from the bun she had worn it in for the mission. It was tangled down her bare shoulders, curled in odd places, reminding him of tree roots. But, like...nice tree roots. 

_Get it together, Dameron_ , he chastised himself. 

She looked so miserable, sitting there, and that made his decision: convince her of her own strength. That was the right way to take this conversation. The right thing for her and the right thing for the Resistance. He took a breath and opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it:

“How do you know the code to my room?”

The question was so unlike all that he had been thinking that he looked at her in surprise.

“You haven’t changed it from what it used to be,” he said.

“I didn’t know I could. Whose was it before?”

He shrugged. 

“We found this place abandoned when we got here, so I dunno. BB-8 recovered all the codes and gave them to us so we could use the rooms. Why?”

It was Kix’s turn to shrug, but her face was wary enough to explain the thoughts she wasn’t verbalizing.

“You’re thinking about what Yama told you earlier,” he realized, a flame of irritation flaring up inside.

She shook her head but he could tell she wasn’t being honest.

“You’re gonna have to work on your lying,” he said with a dry laugh, fighting to keep his voice cool. “Not everyone will be as clueless as Qeepa the Hutt.”

Her cheeks began to glow with heat - embarrassment and anger.

“Don’t try to make me think it’s a stupid conclusion, Dameron,” she snapped.

“I don’t regularly go around memorizing room codes to get into them for...other reasons,” he said acidly. “If that’s what you’re trying to insinuate.”

“So what you’re saying is you only memorized mine?”

“Yes!”

Poe felt his cheeks reddening as his brain finally caught up with her meaning. They stared at one another for a long, tense moment before he couldn’t take it anymore - he stood and made his way to the door.

“Sorry I’ve intruded this long. I’ll let you -”

“Wait.”

He was facing the door, hand in front of the motion sensor, when her own hands caught his arm. He slumped his head forward and then turned to face her, silent. She was chewing the inside of her bottom lip, searching his face for something.

“You’re not intruding,” Kix said. He studied her face again.

“Well, that lie was at least a little better,” he acknowledged. She scowled.

“Just shut up for a minute, okay?”

Obligingly, he crossed his arms and gave her an obstinate look, waiting for her to continue. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“Are we,” she began hesitantly. “Are we going to go on any more missions together? After this?’

“I don’t know. Possibly. Occasionally.” He felt an odd pain in his chest. “Do you want me to request that Leia not to team us up anymore?”

“Yes,” she said, and the pain in his chest turned into something worse.

“Okay,” he nodded, accepting it. “I will.”

“Good,” Kix whispered. “Because Section 5, Article 4.4 only dictates that officers of differing ranks cannot fraternize with one another if they’re in the same squadron,” she said, putting her hands on his arms, unraveling them, and threading her fingers through with his.

He gawked at her, completely taken aback.

“Wh-what?”

“Yeah,” she said, her face a picture of hope. “I just had a test on it. D’Acy gave me a 98%.”

“Good job,” he managed to stammer, but she brushed it aside.

“So you know what that means, right?”

Poe shook his head slowly, unsure of what she meant but hoping it was the same thing he was thinking.

“It means you’re going to have to lay off and let Snap do his job from now on, Commander.”

Poe withdrew his right hand from hers and hesitantly lifted it. She didn’t retreat from him - in fact, she leaned into his touch - as he softly trailed the backs of his fingers down her still-blotchy cheek and ended the motion by placing them under her chin, the pad of his thumb lightly resting in the cleft there.

“I’ll do my best,” he breathed, and tipped her face upward.

Kissing Kix felt like the first memory Poe had of flying: weightless; breathtaking; terrifying in all the best ways. Her lips were slightly chapped, and gloriously warm, and they tasted like salt. She carded her hands into his hair, scratching his scalp lightly with her fingernails, and he groaned quietly into her mouth, which opened to catch the sound and echo it, especially as his own hands wound around her waist and pulled her flush to his body. He wanted to hear it again, so he bit down lightly on her full bottom lip the way he’d been daydreaming about for weeks and was rewarded, especially when his own lips closed on it with a bit of suction.

“Poe,” she panted, and he was forced to release that maddening bottom lip with a soft pop.

“Yeah?” he replied, just as out of breath as she.

“Please tell me Suralinda is wrong,” she said.

“Suralinda is wrong,” he said, as firmly as his blood-starved brain could manage, and tried to kiss her again. She put a hand on his chest and held him at bay.

“I mean, I can understand a third of the base wanting to jump you at any one time; they can’t help it, look at you,” she rushed on, dazedly, and he laughed. “But please tell me you’re not...reciprocating.”

Poe smirked and pulled her toward the couch, collapsing back onto it so that he was sitting and she was seated sideways on his lap. She squeaked in alarm, raising a hand as if she were going to hit him, but he caught it and kissed her palm.

“Is this okay?” he asked, looking for her consent.

She softened and relaxed against him, using the offending hand to trace the stubble on his cheek, instead.

“I feel safest when I’m with you,” she said quietly. “You should know that by now.”

He nodded, and where a few moments before a twinge of pain in his chest at her perceived rebuff had been, it was replaced by something deep and new and protective. 

She ran both hands through his hair again, like she was trying to see how big she could make it. He exhaled in pleasure and pressed a kiss to the underside of her jaw, trailing his lips down her throat. He smiled smugly against her skin when she whimpered.

“You haven’t...answered...the question,” she tried to complain, but the way she angled her neck so that he had better access to it kind of nullified her accusation. He pushed her hair back behind her shoulder, exposing her collarbone before kissing it.

“I haven’t felt like this - or even done this, really - since before I joined up, sweetheart,” he murmured. Kix’s neck flushed even darker; her pupils dilated, and her pink, slightly puffy lips parted. Something mischievous sparked in him as he noticed her reaction, wondering if it had been the casual endearment or something else that caused it.

He looked up at her deliberately through his lashes.

“You believe me, right, baby?” he asked innocently, testing his hypothesis.

She sucked in a breath and he grinned devilishly.

“That is the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she admonished. “It’s so cheesy I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

Poe sighed and let the smile drop from his face in favor of a serious expression.

“I was with a woman - a business partner - before I joined the Resistance. It didn’t...end well. And I haven’t really been with anyone since then.”

“Why?” she asked softly, concerned.

He took another deep breath, feeling exposed and vulnerable, but wanting to make her understand.

“Someone died,” he admitted. “For me, and they shouldn’t have. And I just felt like...I felt like I had been wasting my life. And that I had wasted _their_ life.”

Her brow furrowed.

“Was it her?”

“No,” he said, and a strange expression stole over his face. “It wasn’t her.”

She hummed uncertainly and traced his brows, then his nose, and then his lips with the tips of her fingers, like she was trying to wipe away the odd expression. He closed his eyes and resolutely put Zorii away from his mind before continuing.

“So I just...left. I put everything I had learned doing things I shouldn’t have - all those skills - into fighting the First Order. There hasn’t been any time, since then, for anything or anyone else.”

She was quiet long enough that he opened his eyes to find her looking at him, still dubious.

“Is there time now?” she asked. He began to answer but she cut him off.

“I don’t mean that in a coy way, Poe,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean it seriously. We’re still in a war. It’s probably worse now than it was when you first -”

He pressed his lips to hers in a chaste kiss, silencing her.

“It _is_ worse now,” he agreed in a whisper. “But the difference is now I know there’s more than one way to waste a life.”

He kissed her again, tasting her bottom lip with his tongue in a very minute way that made her breath hitch.

“So now I’d like to make time, Kix,” he murmured earnestly. “If you’ll have me.”

Kix’s eyes blazed; they were exactly the same shade as the green pastel supernova visible above the edge of the horizon from his parents’ house on Yavin 4, just before dawn. She shifted so that she was straddling his lap, settling her weight fully on him, and he groaned so audibly at the sensation that she laughed.

“That wasn’t very suave,” she mumbled, smiling. “Where’s the suave, flying ace Poe Dameron I’ve heard so much about? The one who brings men and women alike to their knees?”

“We can do that sometime, if you want,” he breathed the promise against her, and it was her turn to gasp as his fingers found the skin of her lower back, just under her tank top. Her back bowed toward him involuntarily, like the nerves of her skin and the pads of his fingers were the wrong ends of a magnet pointed at one another, so that all of her beautiful curves were pressed against his chest. He deliberately flattened both of his hands against the flame-hot surface of her back, tracing the soft divot that was her spine.

“Me first, though, I think,” he whispered, sweeping her face with wanton, heavily-lidded eyes.

“You first, what?” she asked, dazed.

“On my knees,” he said simply, as if it should be obvious, and Kix shuddered.

* * *

When Poe left Kix’s quarters a couple hours later, he felt slightly punch-drunk. Humming happily to himself, he turned a corner and nearly ran into Rose and Rey.

Rose took one look at him and scrunched up her face in disgust.

“Gross, Poe,” she complained.

“What?” he demanded.

Rose just shook her head and waved her hand in front of him, like she was trying to sum him up in one action. He looked down quickly, afraid that maybe he’d forgotten his trousers or something, even though he hadn’t even taken them off in Kix’s room.

“That is just indecent,” she informed him. “At least _try_ to be discreet, please, for the sake of the rest of us.”

Poe crossed his arms. He was entirely clothed, there was nothing out of place, so what could she possibly be giving him trouble for? He frowned.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Rose just shook her head again and pushed past him. Rey paused and he could tell she was trying not to laugh.

“If I’m forced to see something I don’t want to see in Kix’s head tomorrow,” she said, a wicked glint in her dark hazel eyes, “I’m coming after you first, flyboy.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: more making out + violence (but certainly not at the same time)

Kix wasn’t sure who started it - her or Poe - because although everyone swore Poe was the most competitive person they knew, she was giving him a run for his money.

“I’ve never been accused of being competitive before,” she gasped, about three weeks into the physical part of their relationship. Poe’s hands were kneading her hips in a dark corner of an abandoned storage room, his lips on her neck. He had pulled her in there before dinner after having been subjected to the torture that was watching her wrestle with Smizzon all afternoon while he trained with Black Squadron nearby. He had gotten steadily and more irrationally jealous as the trainer had put Kix in different holds, teaching her how to break each one, until, unable to concentrate, Poe had dismissed his team early and waited impatiently for her to master breaking out of Smiz’s not-unimpressive arm bar.

He scoffed.

“Right, you, not competitive,” he mused, his hands straying to her ass, squeezing. “Like you don’t know exactly how many rescues I’ve got on you at this very moment.”

“Zero, actually,” Kix managed to remind him. “I’m one ahead as of last night, thank you very much.”

“Shut up,” he mumbled, putting his hands under her thighs and lifting so that she was perched on an old desk, her legs wrapped around him.

“What, you don’t like it when I’m mouthy?” she teased, and he practically growled and nipped at said mouth. Poe thought she smelled incredible - like sweat and broken grass and his own deodorant, which he could tell she had used that morning. It had been a blissful night (even though they had both drawn a boundary at actual sex until a later date, when they both felt more ready and when hopefully, Kix would be at a point in her training that they wouldn’t have to spare Rey’s modesty any longer). The fact that he could smell something of himself on her, regardless of the scene he’d had to endure all afternoon, caused a stab of self-satisfied possessiveness in his abdomen.

“Oh, on the contrary, I like it very much,” he murmured. “But you’re gonna need to keep quiet this time, sweetheart. I’m about 99% certain no one will come looking for us down here, but there’s no lock on that door.”

“Poe!” Kix scolded, her eyes wide at his words, but she cut herself off with a gasp as he slipped both hands under her shirt, his fingers skimming up her ribs, up her damp bra line, and further upward still. He pinched lightly through the cloth covering her breasts and she glared at him, putting a hand over her own mouth.

“ _Shh_ ,” he taunted her.

“Poe,” she whined halfheartedly through her fingers, and, thinking he detected a note of something serious in her tone, instantly stopped, removing his hands from her skin.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Her face flushed red.

“I didn’t say that,” she muttered, and he grinned.

“Good,” he whispered sinfully, and unclasped her bra.

* * *

“Stand,” said Rey.

 _Sit_ , said the Force.

“Stand,” said Rey, again. “C’mon, Kix.”

 _You will sit_ , said the Force.

“ _Stand_ ,” Kix commanded herself, firmly, finding within herself that wavering, watery thread of odd energy Rey insisted was the Force and attempting, for what felt like the millionth time, to grasp it, to bend it away from Rey’s will and toward her own.

...and then, inexplicably - she did.

Shocked, both women stared at one another as Kix stood, wobbling - for three seconds, five seconds - _ten seconds!_

Kix heard a strange, delighted whooping sound coming from behind her and then she was being swept up in Poe’s and Finn’s arms they carried her down the tarmac in celebration. Poe’s helmet fell off as he jogged, yelling at the top of his lungs while everyone training outside paused and began to cheer, even though they couldn’t have known why.

“Put - me - down!” Kix managed to gasp between bouts of laughing and by the time they both heard her and did so, she was breathless.

“ _You - just - did - that!"_ Finn said, pounding her lightly on both shoulders. 

“Were you two spying on me?” she asked, trying for a stern face but not managing it.

“Always,” said Poe, his eyes sparkling, and he seemed to forget everyone gathered around as he kissed her on the cheek.

“Poe,” she admonished, eyes darting around.

“Oh,” he said, suddenly remembering, and then for some reason, looked at Rey for help. She rolled her eyes at him and then kissed Kix on the other cheek.

“Had to make it even,” she said, with a grin like the sun.

* * *

After that, Kix and Poe were never really seen much together besides sitting next to one another at meal times when one of them wasn’t gone on a mission - Kix had firmly quashed the possibility of any outright PDA (" _I want people to respect me for my work, Poe!” “Are you trying to say I’m not respectable?” “Oh, shut up, you know what I mean.”_ ) - but word that they were together spread like wildfire, regardless.

Poe didn’t mind it at all, and though Kix blushed if someone mentioned it even obliquely, her embarrassed smile was enough to satisfy the wolf whistles and good-natured ribs before conversation moved on to something else.

Yes, everything was going very well, Poe thought, until _he_ arrived.

Poe himself had rescued the guy - a starving, drugged pilot named Sènto Lofar who had been snatched from Tatooine by the First Order for his drunken Resistance-supporting speeches. After a week of recovery, he had been deemed healthy enough for training, and eventually, had been assigned to Black Squadron.

Poe didn’t like him. At all. He was arrogant - and yes, Poe knew he definitely was the pot calling the kettle black in this situation, but Lofar’s arrogance seemed to bring others down in order to prop himself up. Poe had also caught him leering at Suralinda a couple times, taking way too much interest in her backside, but she herself had caught him at it the last and final time. Lofar hadn’t been able to fly for two days after she had sauntered up to him, grabbed his hand, and wrenched his fingers apart in a way that left him with at least two metacarpal buckle fractures.

So yes, Lofar was a rude, cocky bastard, but he was a pretty good pilot and he hated the First Order enough to put his life on the line to defeat it, so Poe kept his thoughts to himself, not even telling Kix.

That is, he did so until Lofar sat down next to Kix in the mess one day.

Even from across the room where he had been fixing himself a tray of dinner, Poe could tell Kix was surprised. Yama was on her other side, busily eating and conversing with Karé, who had noticed the situation even though the younger girl had not.

As Poe walked over to them, he watched Lofar lean toward Kix with a slimy grin on his face and say something in her ear. She withdrew from him as much as the crowded table would allow, her face red. 

“Hey there, Commander,” Karé said loudly, startling Yama out of whatever subject she was expounding upon and also causing Kix and Lofar to look up at him - Kix looking unnerved and Lofar looking smug.

“Evening, Kun,” Poe replied evenly, trying to keep his temper in check. “Lofar, afraid I’m going to have to steal Kix. D’Acy needs her for a consult.”

“Too bad,” Lofar said, and he put an arm around Kix, squeezing her shoulder with the hand Suralinda had put in a brace in a way that clearly made her uncomfortable. “I’ll catch ya later, then, Kickass.”

Poe thought he might have bitten through his tongue by the time he and Kix made it to the door. He stood back politely to let her go through first, restraining himself from putting a hand possessively on her lower back as she did so, even though he could feel Lofar’s eyes trained on them. 

He let the mess hall door fall shut quietly behind him and waited for her to turn around and say something, but she was silent as she made her way to the war room.

“No, Kix, sorry,” he said, suddenly understanding that she thought D’Acy had really summoned her. “D’Acy’s off for the night. I just thought you, uh...you looked like you wanted to get out of there.”

“Oh,” she said in a higher voice than normal. “Yeah. Thanks.”

She stopped walking and leaned back against the wall of the corridor, her eyes closed.

“You alright?” he asked. She nodded without opening her eyes. 

He was quiet for another moment, counting the seconds between the breaths she took, a habit he had picked up ever since the night of her first mission. She didn’t seem to be in danger of a panic attack, so he tried again.

“You sure?” 

She sighed deeply, pinched the bridge of her nose, and shook her head.

“He knows,” she said.

“He knows what?”

She opened her eyes and Poe was alarmed to see that they were brimming with moisture.

“Lofar knows about my designation. My old designation. What it means.”

“What?”

“KX,” Kix said miserably. “Someone told him about my nickname and where it comes from and he...he apparently knows what the KX designation means for First Order slaves.”

Poe’s vision went red.

“What did he say to you,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. She shook her head again and wiped at her eyes.

“If I tell you, you’ll do something you shouldn’t,” she said.

Poe took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He didn’t want to upset her, but he also wanted to go break Lofar’s nose. Possibly his neck, too.

“Can you just,” said Kix, holding out her arms weakly, and he relaxed his fists so that he could draw her into his embrace. She laid her head on his shoulder and twisted her own fists in the back of his shirt.

“If he _does_ anything, _says_ anything to you that you don’t like,” Poe said, still trying to blink the red wash from his vision, “I’ll put him in a coma.”

She laughed shakily.

“He’s on your squadron, Poe. You can’t do that.”

“Watch me,” he said darkly.

* * *

Poe didn’t have to wait long.

Four days later, he showed up on the field in one nearly-dead freighter with two liberated prisoners and one unconscious intelligence officer named Tyu, hungry and exhausted and relieved to be alive. The crowd gathered there to welcome them was frantic - helping the prisoners and Captain Tyu onto transports into the med bay - babbling about two days of radio silence.

“I’m fine,” Poe told Leia tiredly. “Communications array got knocked out, General, I’m sorry, and we had to double back around the planet’s third moon to throw off the First Order before we could jump to light -”

Kix appeared in the crowd, running full-tilt, and she slammed into his chest, knocking the rest of his sentence out of his mouth.

“ _Poe_ ,” she whispered. She was shaking.

“I’m alright,” he told her, his still-gloved hands tangled in her hair. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

She drew back from him, her lower lip trembling, but she shook her head and gave him a watery smile that felt like sunshine.

“I knew you were okay,” she said, clearly trying to affect confidence even though she looked wan and tired, and he grinned.

“’Course I’m okay,” he said nonchalantly. “I’m always okay.”

“Commander, when you’re done?” came Leia’s amused voice, and both of them became aware of the snickers and low whistles happening around them. Well, if someone living under a rock hadn’t known about them before, they would now.

Leia’s face was fond, not stern, though, when she gave Poe a pointed look. “I’ll expect your report in twenty minutes, pilot.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Poe, squeezing Kix’s shoulders in a side-hug, unwilling just then to let go of her. She didn’t seem to mind the attention, for once, and rocked forward on the balls of her feet to kiss him after Leia turned away.

“Bet Dameron’s gonna have a nice, warm welcome home tonight,” they suddenly overheard. “That programming must be hard to erase.”

He felt Kix stiffen in his arms. He let go of her and turned to find Lofar leaning against an X-wing - Poe’s own X-wing, in fact - taking in the sight of Kix standing there a little too eagerly. Two other guys - mechanics Poe had never really gotten along with but had also not had a problem with before - were standing there with him, snickering. The rest of the crowd, which had mostly dissipated after following Leia inside, was eerily quiet.

Without saying a word, Poe walked up to him. The cocksure expression never left Lofar’s face.

“What?” he asked. “Am I wrong? I’ve heard a lot about girls like her, y’know, and I’m not here to rain on your parade. Congrats, and all that.” 

He slowly swept his gaze up and down Kix’s body like he was trying to undress her in his mind.

Poe stared at him for a moment and then nodded once, sharply, like he had come to some kind of private conclusion.

“Poe -” said Finn in a would-be cautionary voice, but Poe cut him off.

“It’s fine, Finn,” he replied, calmly, as he opened the maintenance hatch on his X-wing.

And then he slammed Lofar’s unsuspecting face into the heavy door of the hatch so hard that several people screamed.

Lofar dropped like a stone, his nose broken and gushing blood. Poe stood over him for only half a second, taking note of the two broken teeth on the ground at his feet, before he was dragged back by several hands, Snap’s and Finn’s among them. Poe didn’t fight them, though - he’d done what he’d aimed to do.

What no one had counted on was Kix, however, and as Poe and the people holding him back watched her march up to Lofar’s prone form and kick him in the balls with her steel-toed boots, he fell a little more in love with her.

* * *

When Lofar woke up in the medbay a couple days later, Poe was sitting next to him.

“Here’s the thing, Lofar,” he said comfortably, as if they had just been having a conversation that the junior pilot had nodded off in the middle of. 

“It’s one thing to publicly shame a woman about things you yourself wish you were doing with her.”

Poe leaned back and propped up his heavy, muddy boots on Lofar’s lap. Lofar squeaked in agony at the pain; Poe had deactivated the meddroids responsible for giving him analgesics three hours ago. Just to make sure the drugs weren’t going to make it hard for Lofar to follow the conversation.

“Well, if you still _can_ do those things,” Poe amended. “A good, solid kick to the balls like the one Kix gave you can do some pretty irreparable damage. The meddroids are pretty good, but they’re not miracle workers, y’know?”

Lofar was turning a nasty shade of off-white under the gray bandages wrapped around his head. Poe was sure Lofar was able to move (he wasn’t paralyzed or anything), but the man in the bed did nothing; merely laid there, watching him with glittering, hateful eyes.

“But anyway, like I said - it’s bad enough to slut-shame someone. It’s quite another to slut-shame someone who was forced to be a sex slave.”

Poe pressed down harshly with his feet before removing them from the bed and standing up. The uncovered surfaces of Lofar’s face went from white to green as he did it. 

“You know what that really means, right? A sex slave?”

Poe leaned over the bed threateningly, deliberately getting into Lofar’s face.

“It’s rape. Torture. It’s pedophilia, actually, in Kix’s case, since she was trafficked from the storm trooper program at the kriffing age of 7. Is _that_ the kind of thing you like thinking about, Lofar?”

Slowly, very slowly, Lofar shook his head.

“Good answer,” said Poe, in a deadly calm voice. “Very good, because that means I’m not going to rip whatever is left of your dick off and make you eat it.”

The heart monitor next to Lofar’s bed picked up in tempo.

“Here’s what’s going to happen now, you sick skrog. You’re dismissed from Black Squadron because General Organa doesn’t trust me not to get you purposefully killed on a mission. Usually I’d disagree with her underestimation of my professionalism but she’s right on this one.”

Lofar had now gone from green to gray - he matched his bandages.

“Fortunately for you, we can’t send you away because you know too much. So whenever you’re able to get out of this bed and make yourself useful again, you’ll report to Dross Squadron so Suurgav can keep an eye on you. You know Shriv, right? Big guy? Hot temper?”

Poe waited for an answer, so Lofar gave him one.

“Yes,” he rasped hatefully.

“You report to Shriv and you do every damn thing he tells you, even if it’s scrubbing all the toilets on this base with your own personal toothbrush. And if you so much as _look_ at another woman without her permission, or if you even _breathe_ in Kix’s direction, I’ll see if I can’t introduce your head to another X-wing and knock all the knowledge of the Resistance out of it. Then we can sell you to the Hutts and see how _you_ like being a slave, you ungrateful sack of bantha druk. You got it?”

Lofar nodded again. Poe was pleased to see him wince as he did so.

“Good,” he said, and he made himself leave before his impulse control failed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Kix and Poe have two very illuminating conversations. The latter is definitely more enjoyable than the former.
> 
> CW: Pretty hot & heavy. Anatomy lessons. Real curse words...not just Star Wars ones. Content rating definitely goes up. Oops. ;)

Poe wished that the whole incident with Lofar could be dealt with as easily as putting the scumbag’s head into a metal object, but Lofar’s crass words and the memories they brought on lingered in Kix’s eyes and dreams for weeks afterward. He would catch her drifting off into thoughts that made her brow furrow, her palms sweat; sometimes, she would suddenly leave a room and disappear for an hour, returning paler than she had been before and refusing to tell him what had happened.

One night, Poe woke up to find her sitting on the floor, her back to the wall and knees brought up to her chest defensively, eyes wild.

“Kix?” he asked sleepily, sitting up. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, a little too quickly. Her tone was sharp and alert, as if she had been sitting up for hours. She wouldn’t look at him.

Poe got up out of bed and started to walk over to her, but she shied back from him even when he was still several feet away.

“Could you - could you - don’t,” she said breathlessly, eyes shut and a hand held up, palm facing toward him. He froze.

“Kix, honey, no one will hurt you. No one will touch you without your permission. Not even me,” he assured her. “You’re safe.”

She nodded but still didn’t look at him.

“I know,” she said, like she didn’t really believe it.

“You’re safe here, with me,” he said again.

This time, she was able to meet his eyes for half a second before she had to look away again.

“I know; I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “I’m sorry, Poe, I don’t -”

“Hey, shh,” he said, and slowly, without making any sudden movements, he reached for his shirt where it had been discarded on her bedside table and slipped it on over his head. “You’re alright. It’s not your fault, okay? I’m just going to go get you some water.”

She nodded again, biting her lip, and she leaned forward to clutch at her own hair as he shuffled sideways to the refresher to fill up her canteen. He walked carefully back to her with measured steps so that she could clearly hear him coming, and then sat down against the wall with her, a few feet away. He slid the canteen over and she picked it up with trembling hands. He waited until she had taken a drink, then two, and then a third before speaking again.

“Do you want to talk?”

She let out a shaky laugh.

“No,” she whispered.

“Do you want me to talk?”

“No.”

He hesitated, but made himself ask his next question, anyway.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

“Sweetheart, I completely understand if you want me to go,” he began, not sure if she was just trying to spare his feelings, but she shook her head vehemently.

“No, please don’t go,” she whispered, and she held out one of her trembling hands to him. He took it, dismayed at how cold it was. He squeezed it and she seemed to shudder with relief. And then she was suddenly curled into his side, her face buried in his chest.

“It’s not you,” she said. “It’s not, Poe; I promise.”

He nodded and put a hand behind her head, holding her to him. She sagged against him, seeming to melt, all the fight-or-flight response draining out of her. 

They stayed like that for a long time; Poe lost feeling in his lower extremities and in the arm holding her to him, but he didn’t dare move once she had begun to speak.

It helped, losing feeling in his limbs, he reflected later. Because the things she told him (woodenly, with no tears, almost as if she was describing things that had happened to someone else) made him want to commit murder. He didn’t trust himself to speak and he thought maybe that was better anyway, since once Kix began, it was like she was extracting an infection from a wound - almost as if she were made to stop for even the slightest interruption, it would kill her.

When the twin suns finally came up over the mountains, flooding the room with light, she seemed to have finally exhausted the mental list of horrors. She sat up straight, avoiding his gaze.

“I feel like I’ve been lying to you,” she admitted. “All this time, not telling you about...everything. My life. And I understand if you can’t…if you don’t want…me…” she stammered, shamefaced, but he interrupted her.

“I love you,” he said.

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, wide in astonishment.

“What?”

He smiled wistfully and reached out with both hands (even his half-asleep, tingling one) so that he could cup her cheeks, stroking softly with his thumbs.

“ _I_ _love you_ ,” he said again, making a point to enunciate each word clearly and meaningfully.

Kix shook her head.

“Did you not hear -”

“Kix, baby,” said Poe, moving his hands to her shoulders. A flash of memory gripped him the way he gripped her, of holding her like that when she had a bloody face and over-blown pupils, a shell of the vibrant person he held now.

“I listened to everything you said, and you know what I heard?”

She shook her head mutely.

“I heard the story of a survivor,” he told her. “Of someone braver and stronger than I could ever hope to be.”

Kix was quiet for a long moment, searching his face for something.

“Are you sure?” she finally asked, in a very small voice that broke his heart.

“Am I sure about what?”

“That you don’t mind that I’m…” she trailed off, helplessly.

“That you’re incredible?” he asked, rhetorically. “Beautiful, courageous, and way out of my league? No, I definitely don’t mind any of that.”

She laughed faintly.

“That’s not -” she began, but he kissed her.

“Am I sure that I love you?” he murmured, while she tried to catch her breath. “That I’m in love with you?”

He kissed her again.

“Yes,” said Poe. “Yes, I am.”

* * *

“Not that one!”

Kix snatched her hand back from the lever as if it had burned her fingers.

“What?” she exclaimed, anxious.

“Just kidding,” said Poe sweetly in her ear. “That’s just the forward relay.”

Kix dug her elbow back into his ribs.

“That’s not funny, Poe.”

“It was a little funny,” he replied, and unrepentantly drew her closer to him in the X-wing cockpit, his arms wound around her waist. She tried to ignore the way her backside fit snugly in the seat of his lap.

“Seriously, this is something I need to learn. You said it yourself,” Kix said, trying to keep him on track, and he sighed.

“Yeah, you do,” he acknowledged, a bit too mournfully. “Okay. BB-8 normally does the pre-flight checks for me, but you should know how to do it yourself.”

He grabbed her left hand and rested it on the series of gray switches on her immediate left, resting his chin on her shoulder so he could see.

“These are your circuits. If any of them are in the negative position, it means one of your brakers has tripped, and you’re not going anywhere until it’s been fixed.”

“Does that happen often?”

“No - our ships never sit around long enough for their brakers to trip.” Kix felt the edge of his cheek lift into a rueful smirk against the side of her neck. “Guess that’s one good thing about a war.”

Kix hummed and tried not to shiver as he shifted slightly in the seat. Something odd sparked in her diaphragm as he did it - something she had only felt shreds of before in the past few weeks with Poe, but had been too nervous to pursue.

He was too astute for her subterfuge, though, and she could tell the smirk on his face widened, even though she wasn’t looking at him.

“I thought this was strictly a flight lesson, lieutenant,” he murmured, and, _damn him_ , shifted again. Deliberately. Slowly.

Kix couldn’t help it - she gasped.

“Wha -” she started to say, but couldn’t finish the word when his lips began to blaze a trail from her earlobe to the base of her skull. He lifted her heavy hair to the side and swirled his tongue into the junction of her shoulder and neck and she had to bite her lip to keep quiet. The hangar was dark - it was late and true, there weren’t many people around, but the ceiling of the cockpit was open, as it would have been a very tight fit for two people had it been closed.

“Kix,” he said in a low voice.

“Yeah?” she answered, breathless.

“Green button,” he muttered into her skin. “Top right.”

Kix looked up and saw it. With a shaky hand, she reached up and pushed it.

The canopy of the X-wing came down slowly and sealed with a hiss. The transparisteel surface was only a few inches away from Kix’s head and she was forced to lean back against Poe’s chest.

“That’s the canopy release,” he said needlessly.

“I see that,” she returned. “Poe -”

“It’s soundproof, y’know,” he muttered, and one of his hands wandered downward. “Not by design. Because...space. But handy.”

Slowly, carefully, he rolled his hips again, and this time, he maneuvered her so that she moved with him, his left hand at her hipbone and his right flat against the V of her legs.

That odd sensation in her diaphragm became a red hot spark.

A breathless, needy sound she was certain she’d never made before got caught in her throat.

“Poe, I don’t -” she tried to say, but he interrupted her.

“You know I love you, right?”

She bowed her head forward, eyes closed.

“Yeah, I know,” she said.

“Then will you trust me when I tell you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way you’re feeling right now?”

Kix opened her eyes and twisted her torso slightly so she could look at Poe’s face. His pupils were blown wide with desire, but his expression was honest and kind. He moved his hands to her arms, rubbing them lightly.

“I’m not a total idiot, y’know,” he said quietly. “I do notice when you start pulling back.”

“I just…” she whispered, and bit her lower lip in anxiety. His eyes were drawn to her mouth and he blinked a couple times before he was able to meet her gaze again.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Kix finally said. “I don’t ever want to bring up...everything that happened to me...when we’re together. Like this.”

Poe’s brow furrowed.

“Does something I’m doing make you feel like you need to?”

“No,” Kix said quickly. “It’s not that. And it’s not that I feel like I can’t talk to you about my past. I know I can. I just don’t want to talk about it when…” she trailed off helplessly, gesturing at their current seating arrangement.

“Kix, I promise that nothing you will say will scare, disgust, or push me away,” he told her firmly. “Just tell me why you keep pulling back. Do you want me to stop? You know you can tell me to stop any time, no questions asked.”

“No, I don’t want that,” she said again, adamant. “It’s just…”

She squeezed her eyes shut and then spoke the rest of her thoughts in a rush.

“When I was first sold, I was sterilized.”

Poe waited for her to continue.

“You already told me that,” he said gently, confused when she didn’t. “And I told you that it doesn’t matter at all to me.”

Kix’s cheeks were aflame.

“I know you did. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“Why would I be disappointed?” he asked, nonplussed.

Kix groaned softly and leaned forward so that her forehead was resting against the transparisteel of the canopy.

“I asked around, after hearing some other women talk about sex. They told me about how it...feels. I don’t think...with the operation...I don’t think it can feel like that. For me.”

He was quiet for a few beats.

”Have you tried?” he asked softly.

“Oh, good Maker,” Kix swore, thumping her head against the canopy surface in embarrassed frustration. “Why the hell would I do that, after they took it from me? After they took everything? All it ever felt like was...pain.”

Poe was silent long enough that Kix turned again so that she could see his face. His eyes were sympathetic, but also oddly intense and curious. He wet his bottom lip in a subconscious kind of way and slowly replaced his right hand, palm flat against her. Warmth seeped from his skin, through her layers of underwear and trousers.

“Poe -”

“I think you’re wrong, Kix,” he said.

She scoffed. 

“How -”

“Wait,” he interrupted, tone slightly clinical, and he pressed gently inward with his fingers.

Kix convulsed.

“What -” she panted. Poe exhaled in a satisfied way and repeated the action. Kix swore again as her thighs tensed, almost against her will, as if her body were seeking the pressure from Poe’s fingers without her permission.

“Did that hurt?” he asked, though he clearly already knew the answer.

“N-no,” Kix whispered, breathless. “I’ve never, uh...felt that before,” she admitted, and he swallowed, hard, fighting to keep his expression patient and understanding.

“Sweetheart... _that?_ ” he said, pressing down again, a little more firmly this time, and she moaned softly and put one of her own hands on top of his. “Whatever those bastards did to you...I don’t think it took away what you think it did.”

“Then why -”

“It’s not supposed to hurt,” he rasped, voice rough with emotion and poorly-concealed desire. “At least, not the way you’ve been hurt. It should be gentle, especially at first. Good sex takes patience - your partner’s patience. And understanding, and enthusiastic consent, and ideally...well. A lot of things I’m sure you’ve never been given.”

“Oh,” she whispered, and she was sure he could audibly hear her heart pounding.

Poe exhaled harshly against her neck, his question burning on his tongue.

“Could you -”

“Yes,” he said, voice husky. “Anything. Anything you want.”

“I don’t really know what I want,” she said quietly, perplexed.

”What was it, uh...” he began, and made himself move his hands to her hips, belatedly realizing they were still pressing intimately against her, which probably wasn’t helping either of them maintain clearheadedness. ”The women you overheard. What was it they said it felt like?”

Her cheeks flushed a deep, deep crimson.

“They were rating men,” she admitted. “Based on how it...felt. I think. And when I asked what they meant - because it all felt, um...bad, to me, they just looked at me funny and left.”

Poe breathed out heavily, his eyes fluttering shut against her shoulder. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling, but it seemed like a heady, complicated mixture of frustration, disbelief, anger, and what she was experienced enough to recognize as want.

”Okay,” he ground out. “Okay, you know how a man, uh...finishes. Right?”

Kix put a hand to her mouth, unsure if she was keeping herself from cursing or crying or laughing.

”Yes,” she said slowly.

”Right,” he agreed, eyes still closed tight, like he was trying to focus. “Well, a woman can, too. _Should._ Several times. 

”Oh,” she said, a little blankly, not sure what to think.

A thick, heavily charged silence fell between them.

”I can show you,” he murmured in a voice like silk, pitched low and stretched tight. “I can help you.”

Kix shivered against him, and she felt his hands tighten at her hips.

”Do you want -?”

“ _Maker_ , yes,” he growled. “You have no idea how much.”

Kix nodded mutely, trying to regulate her own breathing.

“Okay,” she whispered, and she felt him swallow.

“Okay,” he repeated, and his hands migrated to her thighs, pulling them gently apart to drape down on either side of his own. He slid down in the jump seat so that they were both in a more reclined position, and then unfastened the button at her waist, drawing down the zipper. His fingers rested on the elastic band of her underwear.

“First rule,” he intoned. “I need you to talk to me. I want your words, Kix. Nothing happens unless you want it to happen. You are in control here.”

Kix nodded, but he shook his head.

“No,” he said gently. “Tell me. Do you want me to touch you?”

“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “Ple -”

She cut herself off with a choked inhalation as his fingers reached their goal. He swore under his breath.

“Oh, _kriff_ ,” he groaned into her shoulder. “Kix, baby. You’re so wet already.”

Kix shuddered, tense, and she felt him use his other hand to press against her chest so that she was forced to lie back against him.

“Relax,” he whispered. “Just feel for me, okay?”

She obeyed, her head lolling back on his shoulder. He took a deep, steadying breath under her back and then moved his fingers in an exploratory fashion, tracing the length of her sex. Kix fought to keep herself prone against him as he learned her by touch. She thought she had been moderately successful in doing so until he gently pinched _something_ between the sides of his first two fingers.

Kix’s head popped right up with a gasp and nearly hit the canopy ceiling. Poe had the nerve to laugh.

“There it is,” he murmured. Kix’s hips were tensed, holding herself up and away from his lap. He pushed her down again as he kissed the side of her neck.

”How does that feel?”

It felt like the most difficult, costly feat in the world, but Kix managed to make herself croak: “Gods, Poe.”

His ministrations stopped, his hum questioning.

”Good,” she squeaked, a tear trailing down her temple. “Please. Please don’t s-stop.”

”If we’re only at ‘good,’ then I’ll need a little help,” he said, and caught her earlobe in his teeth. “Can I take your hand?”

“Yes,” Kix made herself enunciate, but she had no idea what he meant until he took her hand with his unoccupied one and guided it to meet the one he already had in her pants.

“Feel what I do,” he whispered, as her fingers trembled on top of his own. She nodded jerkily as she felt him trace and tease. She was following his devastating pattern pretty well when he pulled his hand away and then put hers in its place.

“You try now,” he said, directing her movements, and her mouth fell open in a soundless cry. Her own fingers were more slender, and she had to use two where he had only used one.

“That’s good,” Poe murmured approvingly. “You show me what feels best, okay?”

She got lost for several long moments, exploring herself, and only came back to reality when she realized he had moved his hand off of her own, downward, and was teasing at her entrance.

“Poe,” she babbled. “ _Kriff_ , Poe.”

“May I?” he murmured sweetly.

”Yes!” she gasped, desperate.

”You sure?” he asked, smiling against her skin, and she growled, panting.

”Please,” she begged.

He chuckled low in his throat, braced his free arm across her chest, cupping one breast, and finally, slowly, pushed inside her. Predictably, her body writhed upward, but he held her close, making sure she didn’t hit her head.

“ _Fu_ -” she began to swear, but didn’t have enough breath to finish the word.

“Yeah,” he muttered, voice rough. “Maker, sweetheart - you feel so good.”

Their combined efforts wrought such a sound out of her that she began to laugh at herself in dazed disbelief.

“Please, p-please,” she begged, unsure what she was asking for.

“So hot and soft,” he mumbled, adding another digit to his finger fucking. “I can’t wait to taste you, baby. Gonna - I’m gonna make you fall apart on my tongue,” he promised, and when Kix’s hips moved upward this time, he chased her with his own, painfully stiff against her. He added pressure to his arms without ceasing his ministrations, holding her fast to him as they rolled and flexed together.

Something was building inside Kix - something vaguely electrical and overwhelming, with sparks and shocks and heat, something she desperately wanted but which seemed to dance just out of reach.

”I want,” she gasped, and reached her free hand back to grab a fistful of Poe’s hair, quite without thinking, and pulled. Poe sucked in a sharp breath and the motion of his hand quickened.

”What do you want, baby?”

She moaned, pitiful, and writhed against him.

”I don’t know!” she whined, but he understood.

”It’s okay,” he panted. “I got you; I know.”

”Poe!” she muttered, and pulled on his hair again. She felt his jaw clench and his arm moved suddenly, as if to reach further down her body, and then she felt his fingers curl up inside her like a hook. The resulting intense sensation made her cry out - loudly.

”Fuck,” she whimpered, voice two octaves too high. “Oh, fuck, Poe.”

”Maybe later,” he purred, smiling wickedly, and curled his fingers again.

She let out a choked wail.

”Do you want to come now?” he asked sinfully.

She couldn’t speak. It literally felt like she was incapable of speaking.

”Tell me,” he demanded.

“ _Gods fucking dammit_ , Poe - yes!” she wheezed, snarling, and he had the nerve to laugh.

”No need for that kind of language,” he chided, and curled his fingers expertly one more time.

She shattered.

It felt as though she had flung herself off the top of the highest mountain on Iopethus without a parachute; Poe was her only frame of reference, of gravity, as he continued to stroke her through the sensation, taking over with his thumb when her own hand went limp. The impression of falling rolled through all of her nerve endings, whiting out her vision, and when she was able to think again several long moments later, she realized that her lips and the pads of her fingers had gone numb. Poe whispered sweet, filthy things to her that she was only able to understand after the static of her thoughts cleared.

“You taste so fucking good,” she finally, faintly heard him say, and turned her head to see that his fingers were at his lips. Her jaw dropped a little bit when he grabbed her own hand and sucked it into his mouth, nibbling gently at her tingling fingertips once they were clean.

Kix felt boneless in the afterglow and therefore was able to flip herself around so that they were face-to-face, straddling his legs, even though the space in the X-wing was still unhelpfully small. He groaned as she ground down against him, but she silenced him with a kiss, tasting herself.

“What was that last thing,” she breathed, savoring the odd, not unpleasant musk on his lips.

“What?” he asked, eyes hazy and unfocused.

“When you,” she said, and hooked her fingers like she thought he had. A beautiful blush began to creep up his tan neck.

“I don’t know what it’s called,” he confessed. “I just know of it. From...yeah. Before. But it’s different than your clit. That’s the first one. And they’re both…” he paused as a smug, wicked grin stole over his face. “ _Definitely_ still there.”

“Normally I would disapprove of this,” Kix said, waving her hand vaguely in his face, “complete and utter display of cocky self-righteousness, but after that…” She squirmed against him again and his head fell forward into her shoulder, biting his lip.

“After that, you can act however you want; _have_ whatever you want, flyboy,” she whispered.

Poe took a deep breath and looked back up into her eyes. He cupped one of her cheeks with his hand.

“Kix,” he murmured. “You don’t owe me anything like this, ever. That’s not how a real relationship...or good sex...it shouldn’t work like that. I don’t want you to ever feel like that with me, ever.”

She paused, letting his words sink in as she carded another hand through his hair. It was wild, sweat-slick at his temples, and he was looking at her like she was a supernova.

“You’re really beautiful, you know that?” she said softly, seriously. “You are a beautiful man.”

His answering smile was slow and amused.

“You puff my head up any more, we might not be able to get out of this X-wing,” he taunted her. “Ego might be too big.”

“Hmm,” Kix deliberated, and she took her hand out of his hair, sliding it down his chest, down his abdomen, and felt him straining against his own pants. “You might be right. Does seem pretty big.”

He bit his lip again, brown eyes burning like coals, and it was her turn to grin as his hips bucked up under her own.

“Maybe we should get out of this X-wing while we can,” she continued, tracing his shape. “Relocate somewhere with a little more room.”

He punched the green button for the canopy, his eyes never leaving hers.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've left this story hanging for a truly ridiculous amount of time. I'm so sorry. I know exactly where I'm going with it, though, and will be posting more regularly until it's finished. Cross my heart. This chapter is a bit of a shorter one...sorry.
> 
> CW: It's time for some d r a m a !

_ Her cheek was pressed against his bare shoulder, arm slung haphazardly across his chest, legs tangled with his, catching her breath, listening to his heart gradually come down from its frantic pace -  _

_ “That was…” he murmured, and he swiped the back of one hand across his sweating brow. _

_ “Yeah?” Kix asked, smiling shyly. _

_ “Gods,” Poe said, and he angled her face up toward his, his lips salty and swollen as he kissed her. Kix traced her tongue across them and he groaned. _

_ “Food,” he muttered, eyes closed. “I need food and water before anything else.” _

_ “Quitter,” she said, and kissed him on the tip of his nose. _

_ “Not a quitter. It’s literally breakfast time.” _

_ “Mmm. I guess that’s true. And you have a meeting at 0900.” _

_ “Canceled it after round two,” he said. “While you were asleep. Commander Dameron suddenly came down with a cold last night.” _

_ Kix laughed. “Commander Dameron is a liar.” _

_ Poe grinned down at her, his eyes alight with an impish fire. _

_ “Calling me Commander in bed, huh?” _

_ “Oh, shut up,” Kix retorted, and she drove her head into the joint of his shoulder and neck with a little more force than was needed. He, still smiling, trailed his fingers through her light brown tangles. They were silent for a few moments, their breathing patterns falling naturally into a rhythm, until Kix broke it. _

_ “Tell me about where you grew up?” _

_ A soundless but somehow pleased tremor rumbled through Poe’s chest, and he answered with his eyes still closed. _

_ “It's dense jungle, mostly,” he murmured. “Swampy. Some of the flowers glow at night. And you would not believe the size of the bugs.” _

_ “Is it warm?” _

_ “All the time,” he mused. “Sometimes it was too warm at night to sleep in the house, so I would climb up on the roof and sleep up there, where there was a breeze.” _

_ “Did that help?” _

_ “Not much,” he admitted. “The trees are so thick that they block out most of the wind. It felt like a cage, sometimes. I think that’s why I was so eager to fly.” _

_ “So you could see the sky?” _

_ “Yeah,” he said, and ran a hand up and down one of her arms. “There’s a supernova just above the horizon by my parents’ house. You can only see it for a few minutes, just before dawn. It reminds me of you.” _

_ Surprised, Kix looked up at him. _

_ “What?” _

_ He smiled and smoothed back the hair that had fallen into her face. _

_ “You heard me,” he teased. “It’s beautiful. The same colors as your eyes. Light green, dark green, just a little gray.” _

_ Kix blushed and buried her head back in his shoulder. _

_ “Cheeseball.” _

_ He hummed. _

_ “That was a good line, you have to give me that.” _

_ She smacked him lightly on the chest. _

_ “You don’t have to use a pick up line if you’re already in bed,” she told him. _

_ “True, but then again, it wasn’t really a line.” _

_ They lapsed into drowsy quiet again.  _

_ “Will you go back there after all this?” Kix suddenly asked. _

_ Poe blinked down at the top of her head. _

_ “After the war?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ Poe drew in a deep breath. _

_ “Well, no. Probably not right away. I’ll go where Leia goes.” _

_ Kix said nothing, occupying herself by making patterns on his chest with her fingers. _

_ “She’s kind of...a second mother to me. And she always says making and keeping peace is harder than winning an outright war.” He shrugged, shifting Kix’s head as he did it. “I hope I get to see if she’s wrong or right.” _

_ “That sounds...exhausting.” _

_ Poe let out a huff of air. _

_ “Maybe,” he mused. “I think it mostly sounds like it’ll never happen. Or that I’ll never get to see it, even if it does.” _

_ Kix’s fingers paused. _

_ “Why?” _

_ Poe rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Disquieted, Kix sat up and stared down at him. _

_ “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. _

_ “Didn’t mean it like what?” _

_ Poe looked helplessly at her for a long moment, and she began to feel self-conscious. She grabbed her bra from the bedside table (where it had been flung over his lamp several hours earlier) and put it on while he tried to marshal his thoughts into an acceptable order. _

_ “For the longest time,” he finally said, as she slipped her shirt back over her head. “I thought helping to win this war was the only way I could make up for the harm I caused.” _

_ Kix paused in the act of buttoning her trousers. Poe was staring off into the middle distance, his face solemn.  _

_ “I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since Kijimi,” he confessed, finally, looking back at her. “It doesn’t feel fair if I survive this thing when so many other good people won’t.” _

_ She finished with the fly of her pants. The questions she wanted to ask hung in the air between them - What harm? What happened on Kijimi? - but he looked so forlorn, sitting there at the edge of the bed, naked and vulnerable under the faded, patched New Republic Navy coverlet he used as a comforter.  _

_ Kix sighed and came toward him. He leaned forward and put his forehead into her chest. _

_ “You dying in a war doesn’t fix things you did in your past, Poe,” she whispered into his curls. “You dying doesn’t put anything right.” _

_ He wrapped his arms around her waist, silent. _

_ “Promise me you’ll look after yourself the way you’d look after me,” Kix murmured. _

_ He didn’t reply. _

_ “Poe?” _

_ Frowning, she pulled him back so that she could see his face. And then she screamed. _

_ His face was bruised, beaten. There was a deep, nasty gash across one cheekbone. His eyes were rolled back in his head. _

_ Hands numb, panicked, she hastily laid him back on the bed. When his head hit the mattress, he let out a shuddering breath of air. _

_ “Evacuate,” he croaked, and he managed to blink and find her face with bloodshot eyes. A trail of pink blood bubbled and leaked out of one corner of his mouth. “Tell Leia.” _

_ “Poe?” Kix sobbed. _

_ “I’m sorry,” he said, and with one more choking half-breath, died in her arms. _

* * *

Kix woke paralyzed, panting, her skin prickling and icy.

Poe wasn’t there. He was gone on a mission and she was alone, but she reached a hand over to check his side of the bed anyway. It was cold and empty, and the reality of her dream finally began to sink in.

“Evacuate,” she whispered through numb lips. She looked around her dimly lit room - it was the middle of the night, judging by the fact that all three suns were behind the mountains. “Evacuate.”

In less than a minute, she was wearing both sets of clothes she owned (with a third pair of extra socks stuffed in one pocket and all of Poe’s photos folded into the other, hastily grabbed from the wall above his nightstand). She nudged BB-8 off of his charging station a little more forcefully than she meant to, and he rolled to wakefulness with a digital squeak of alarm.

“Sorry, Beebee,” she gasped. “Poe’s in trouble. We have to start evacuating.”

The droid didn’t miss a beat. He rolled out the door and down the hallway, leaving her at Leia’s quarters before whizzing down the corridor toward the hangar.

The general answered the door before Kix was able to knock a third time. She looked alert for the middle of the night, as if sleep had eluded her.

“It’s Poe, isn’t it,” the woman said, her mouth in a grimace, and Kix nodded. Leia pulled Kix into the room and shut the door.

“What did you see?”

Stammering, Kix told her.

Leia nodded and closed her eyes. She reached for Kix’s hand and as she took it, it felt as though the thin, watery Force current, always present in her chest and mind, became a raging torrent.

“Listen,” Leia commanded.

Kix did. They both did.

And when they heard the faint beating of Poe’s heart, felt his trembling, labored breaths, felt ghostly shackles at wrists and ankles, Kix’s eyes burned with relief.

Leia dropped her hand and the connection broke. Desperately, without realizing she was doing it, Kix reached for Leia’s hand again, but the general cupped both of her cheeks instead, forcing her to meet her fierce brown eyes. It was only at that moment that Kix realized they were the same height.

“Dreams aren’t always reliable, Kix, but the Force is. I felt it just before you came to wake me up. He’s captured, but he’s alive.”

Kix nodded, desperately trying to blink the moisture out of her eyes. One tear fell onto Leia’s hand and she wiped it away as she withdrew her hands from Kix’s face.

“He’s alive, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you can’t go get him.”

“W...what?”

Leia turned sharply and pulled a lever on the wall. Sirens began to wail throughout the base and doors up and down all corridors began to fly open, sleepy voices turning urgent. She pulled a cloak on over her nightclothes and grabbed a bag that Kix assumed was always kept packed and waiting.

“Poe Dameron is my best pilot and one of my most inventive advisors,” she said calmly, stepping into the corridor, where people were beginning to run to their battle stations. “He’s also one of the best at getting out of tight spots.”

“But, Gen -”

Leia began to stride away. Kix followed, words fighting each other for room in her mouth as they arrived in the command center.

“He also made me promise to not spare resources we don’t have for his sake.”

“General -“

“Connix, this is a full evacuation. Get it started.”

Connix nodded and started yelling into a radio as she ran from the room.

“Tico, find us a new home, won’t you?”

“Already have one in mind, General,” Rose said, handing Leia a readout. “Picked it out right after we got here. Just in case.”

Leia looked it over and nodded once. “Good. Send out communiques to our teams in the field, letting them know about our move.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Rose, busying herself at the glowing display.

“Not Dameron’s,” Leia said, and Rose paused, looking up in confusion.

“Ma’am?”

“He’s compromised,” Leia told her in a colorless voice, and Kix sagged heavily against the nearest wall. Her legs could no longer hold her up.

Horrified, Rose stared at Leia, and then at Kix, and then back at Leia.

“I’m sorry, but that’s how it has to be. For the good of the Resistance.”

Kix bit down on her tongue, hard. 

“Kix, you’re on Tico’s evac detail. Got it?”

Kix nodded, still not trusting herself to control her tongue. Leia sighed and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“He would hate me if someone died to get him out of there. Especially if that person were you,” she murmured. “I’ve seen that boy escape the jaws of death more times than I can remember. Have faith.”

Leia walked away, taking what felt like the last of Kix’s hope with her.

Kix stood, swaying, trying to focus on Rose, who was still frozen in shock. She had dropped a file of readouts on the floor and Kix bent to pick them up, but Rose stopped her.

“Don’t,” she said.

Kix paused.

“Why?” she asked, voice tight with desperation.

“You can’t know where we’re going,” she whispered urgently. “In case you get caught.”

Kix shook her head.

“What -“

“Take this,” Rose commanded, and she slipped an odd bracelet onto Kix’s wrist. A matching one was on Rose’s own wrist, and as Kix watched, Rose held down a button on each so that they began to blink in sync.

“Go get Poe,” Rose told her, her dark eyes glittering and bright. “If you get caught, smash the bracelet. If you don’t, it’ll lead you back to us.”

“Rose,” Kix whispered, staring at her. “I -“

“S’Riq Tur.” Rose said again. “He was on a mission to S’Riq Tur with Pava and Tyu. Go get him - _them_ \- back.”

And she pushed Kix out of the war room. 

Kix stood there, people surging around her, feeling oddly out of touch with reality.

_ Finn and Rey are off-world _ , she thought, frantic.  _Black Squadron would have its own assignment. They’d never disobey Leia. I need a pilot. One no one will miss and one that doesn’t mind breaking the rules._

Shriv Suurgav shouldered past her in the hallway, throwing an apology back at her as he went, and the solution came to her like a bolt of lightning.

“Lofar,” she breathed.

* * *

“You owe him,” Kix growled at Lofar, who was in the midst of packing crates for transport.

“I don’t owe him druk,” Lofar retorted. “I shot my mouth off and he took two of my teeth in payment, plus a demotion. That’s a fair deal. More than fair, actually, since you got a free shot in, too.”

“You -” Kix balled her fists at her sides. “You  _ complete _ ass. Who the pit do you think saved you from the First Order in the first place?”

Lofar stopped and straightened, but he didn’t look at her.

“He did,” he admitted, and he scrubbed his face with grease-stained hands.

“Yes, he did,” Kix repeated, acidly. She waited, watching Lofar make up his mind. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he looked up at her. 

It was an odd moment to realize she had never noticed how bright blue his eyes were.

“Let’s go,” he said.

* * *

“Alright, Kickass,” said Lofar, as the TIE they had stolen from the evacuation party screamed across the sky and into the black, “where are we going?”

Kix, breathless from the speed - Poe hadn’t been exaggerating when he told her that Lofar was a good pilot - closed her eyes and reached inward, searching her feelings for the Force. It seemed easier now, she realized, as she found the current; easier, now, to find Poe’s unconscious, bleeding face in the torch light of an interior room.  _ Still alive. _

“S’Riq Tur,” she said, and opened her eyes.

Lofar laughed - a crazy, disbelieving sound.

“Of course!” he said, and the ship began to hum as he entered the coordinates for Hutt Space. “Of course Dameron would be captured raiding a slave trader’s treasure trove. He’s sure got a type, doesn’t he?”

Kix ground her teeth together and braced for the jump.

* * *

The landing nearly killed them both.

Some kind of invisible barrier caught the wings of the starfighter and tumbled it like a die across the bloodred horizon of S’Riq Tur. Kix’s scream was caught in her throat as she felt the ship begin to break apart, shredding itself on the branches of the native, iron-like trees.

Kix came to in the dark, still strapped into the seat she had ejected from the starfighter. Hurriedly, she unbuckled the harness and, ignoring the bumps and bruises and scrapes she could feel all over, crawled on all fours to the moaning, cursing mass of humanity that she thought was Lofar.

The pilot had been impaled by one of the tree branches. Kix stared in horror at the sight of it plunging into the man’s side, soaked with blood.

“Looks like - you’re on your own, kid,” he coughed, grimacing, and pushed away her attempts to staunch the bleeding.

“Lofar,” Kix whispered, eyes wide. “I can’t leave you -”

“Yes, you can,” he shot back. “And you w-will.”

“Sènto,” Kix said, her voice breaking.

Lofar smiled then, his jagged teeth stained red. He took a small blaster out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

“You’ll need that more...more than I will.”

“I already have one -”

“Then hide this one in your boot. And t-tell Dameron we’re even, alright?”

“Tell him yourself.”

He smiled again, faintly, and closed his eyes. He leaned his head back against the same tree that had killed him.

“Troopers’ll be h-here any minute,” he said, harsh, and he pushed her away. “Go.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rescue. It’s...intense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Shit’s about to go down. Non-con. Sexual assault. Not graphic, but pretty harsh. A little torture. You’ve been warned.

The slave market of S’Riq Tur had been built up in the ruins of some ancient native civilization, and the walls of the fortress were forbidding in the extreme, lined with spikes and watch towers with searchlights. Fortunately, the TIE fighter crashing in the dark, snowy forest had drawn most, if not all, of the attention.

Kix paused, breathing hard, just outside the slave’s entrance, and felt like she had stepped backward in time. She knew this place. She’d been here before, but had not known the name of the planet.

She closed her eyes and held her breath, searching her memory.

_She was young - maybe seven years old - frightened, freezing, and hungry. A wicked-looking man paid a short, squat creature a purse full of credits and was given a small collar. The man turned to the line of children and grinned evilly at her._

_“Come, little one,” he said, in a big, dark voice, and Kix was pulled out of line._

Kix opened her eyes and inspected the door. Yes, she was sure she had been here. Synt Y’At, her first master, had purchased her from this building.

She pulled her cloak more securely over her hair and waited for the door to open. When it did so a few minutes later, four guards struggled under the weight of two bodies, which were dumped in the gray snow.

“Should we bury them?” asked one, a reedy man with a high, thin voice.

“Nah, the carrionites will take care of them soon enough,” said another, a Twi’lek.

“Not worth the effort,” a third agreed, and he nudged one of the bodies with his boot. Kix stuffed her knuckles in her mouth as the person’s head lolled to the side, her long, dark hair spilling out over the muddy, frozen ground.

It was Jessika Pava, one of Poe’s most trusted pilots. And lying next to her was Captain Tyu - the kind intelligence officer who had been teaching her his native language in his spare time, just because she had thought it beautiful, and she had asked him to.

The guards pulled the door back open and Kix darted forward behind them. The last one in - the thin man who had spoken first - didn’t notice her slip inside behind him, just before the heavy door fell shut.

The guards continued down the flame-lit corridor and she watched them go, trying to breathe silently as she pressed herself flat to the wall.

 _I’m sorry, Jess_ , she thought desperately. _I’m sorry, Tyu._

She stole down corridor after corridor, wandering level after level, looking for a lone guard she might be able to take out for a key and for information.

When she found one, she almost felt sorry for him. He was young, some sort of species with blue skin, four eyes, and purple pimples dotting his cheeks. 

He never saw her coming. She plunged the needles of her stunning device into his neck and then caught him as he fell, paralyzed, successfully keeping his blaster from clattering on the flagstones.

She grabbed his key ring and waved it in front of the nearest door. It opened into a dark, mercifully empty room, and she dragged the helpless guard inside.

A few minutes later, he was awake again. Still unable to move, all of his eyes were wide and scared, staring up at her like a cornered beast. She leveled her blaster at his head.

“Where are they keeping the Resistance pilot?” she demanded.

The guard blinked and whimpered.

“Tell me. Now,” she threatened, and pressed the barrel to his forehead.

“Guest quarters,” he croaked. “Malfeks Tey bought him.”

Kix’s vision tunneled and she put a hand on the wall, steadying herself.

“Malfeks Tey is here?” she whispered. The guard nodded.

“He said he knew him.”

“Tey knew the pilot?”

He nodded again.

“He was here to look at the new shipment when the rebels got caught,” he continued, all eyes still crossed, trained on the barrel of the blaster. “And he paid the executioner double for him. Something about the guy getting caught on camera, stealing one of his slaves.”

Kix cursed, thinking fast.

“How do I get to the guest quarters?”

The guard hesitated and she growled, priming the firing coil in his face.

“Tell me or I’ll shoot.”

“If you kill me, you won’t know where to go,” he babbled, and she aimed the blaster at his knee.

“Shooting you doesn’t mean killing you,” she replied evenly.

“Up two floors,” the guard said, quickly. “South wing.”

“Will this,” Kix asked, holding up the guard’s key ring, “unlock the door?”

“Yes, it will; please don’t hurt me,” he begged, “I swear I won’t make a sound.”

“No, you won’t,” Kix agreed, and she pulled her spare pair of socks out of her pocket and stuffed them in his mouth.

“You’ll be able to move in four hours, more or less, but if they find you before that,” she told him, “you won’t breathe a word of any of this. You never saw me. If they don’t kill you, you’ll go find a new job. You got it? You don’t do this anymore. You don’t traffic people. That’s the bargain for your life.”

The guard stared at her while she dismantled his blaster, stomping on the firing mechanism so that it broke. She looked back at him and he nodded.

“This is a gift from the Resistance, kid,” she said, leaning over him. “You think the First Order would show you this kind of mercy? Consider the rest of your life borrowed time. Make it count.”

And she locked the door behind her.

* * *

When Kix reached the south wing, it was deserted. She stopped at the end of the corridor, holding her breath, but heard nothing. There were dozens of doors. How was she supposed to figure out which one Poe was being held in?

 _The Force,_ she heard Leia say, and she immediately closed her eyes, listening.

_Seven doors down on the left, Malfeks Tey, her most recent master, was laughing._

The sound of it made all the hair stand up on her body.

_“This vibroblade has grown dull, sadly,” she heard him say to a crumpled, dark-haired figure on the floor. “Clean up this mess while I go and fetch another.”_

She withdrew even further into the wall, flattening herself against it, as Malfeks opened the door and strode away from her. He disappeared with a sharp snap of his coat around the corner, and Kix ran to the door as silently as possible. She watched the corner for five seconds, and when he did not come back, slipped inside.

Poe was collapsed on the side of the bed, his hands and neck chained to a heavy metal loop on the stone wall, blood weeping down his bare back. He heard the fall of her step and tensed, whipping his head toward her with a snarl.

She flew at him, covering his mouth with her hand before he could make a sound.

“Shh,” she cautioned. His eyes were wild and enormous in his face as he took her in. She removed her hand and kissed him, hard. His lips tasted like iron.

“No,” he whispered, drawing back from her, terrified. “No, you can’t be here, Kix! It’s Tey!”

“I know,” she told him, and stood on her tiptoes to release the chain from the loop. It was only then that she fully saw the wounds in Poe’s back.

 _REBEL SCUM_ said his swollen, mutilated shoulder blades. The taste of bile flooded her mouth.

“Did he -” she began, and Poe nodded.

“I’m alright,” he told her, and she finally pulled the chain free, still trying to choke back her revulsion. He struggled to his feet, trying to muffle the metallic links as he did so.

“They know,” he said, his voice on the edge of panic. “They know about the Resistance on Iopethus.”

“Evacuation started three hours ago,” Kix whispered back, distracted by the locked manacles, and Poe’s shoulders slumped in relief.

“I can’t unlock these,” she realized, frustrated, and he nodded.

“I know. He’s got the key in his coat. How did you know I was in trouble? Who’s with you?”

“Uh...a dream. A Force dream, maybe. I’m not really sure if that’s a...thing. And...no one,” she rambled. 

The little color remaining in his face drained away.

“Leia didn’t sanction this, did she,” he asked rhetorically.

“I’ll submit myself for disciplinary action when we get back, okay?” Kix snapped. “I’ll take a court martial over you dying, Poe, and I don’t care what you think about that.”

Poe swallowed.

“Have you seen Jess and Tyu?”

Kix bowed her head.

“They’re gone,” she told him, and he blinked frantically, trying to wipe his eyes with his bound hands.

“I thought so,” he muttered. “I just...Jessika.”

“I know,” Kix whispered, reaching for him. “Do you think you can muffle the chains -“

The door opened.

Malfeks Tey stood there, larger than life, with a surprised sneer of delight on his rugged face.

“Well, isn’t this a treat,” he rumbled, and with one large step, he shut the door behind him and grabbed Kix around the neck, forcing her against the wall by the throat.

Poe launched himself at Malfeks, but Malfeks kicked him back, landing a blow to his gut, and then grabbed the blaster from Kix’s hip and pressed it under her chin.

“Hello again, little dove,” he purred.

“Get off of her!” Poe wheezed, and he tried to rise, but Malfeks caught the chain connected to his neck and yanked on it, hard. Poe fell again, coughing.

Malfeks holstered the blaster in his waistband and then let go of Kix’s neck just long enough to backhand her. She fell, dazed, and Malfeks pulled Poe’s chains through the loop again. Poe was forced to watch, shaking with helpless rage, as Malfeks picked Kix up off the floor and twisted her arms behind her back.

“Oh, I _am_ glad to see you, darling,” he said, placing one hand on her chest and squeezing, roughly. Kix bit her lip to keep from making a sound.

“Get your fucking hands off of her,” Poe threatened hoarsely, but Malfeks just laughed as he shoved Kix to her knees.

“I can put my hands wherever I want, on either of you, slave,” he taunted Poe, and, stepping around her, grabbed Kix’s chin, forcing her face upward. “Back where you belong, little dove?”

Kix said nothing, but she glared up at him.

“I got this traitor to admit that he cares about you while I was laying his back open, you know, but have you been honest? Does he know all the ways you’ve already been ruined? Does he know that all this trouble he’s gotten himself into over you isn’t worth it?”

Malfeks leaned down toward her, smiling cruelly, and Kix spat in his face.

A deadly silence fell on the room. Malfeks straightened and wiped away the saliva.

“I guess we’ll have to show him, then,” he said in a quietly vicious voice, and unbuckled his belt.

“No,” Poe croaked, frantic, and Malfeks drew the stolen blaster and aimed it at his head.

“Fight me and he dies, you filthy Schutta,” he told Kix. “I won’t warn you twice.”

“Don’t - please -” Poe begged, but she just looked at the blaster pointed at his head, at his stricken face, and then, clenching her jaw, faced forward.

Malfeks gathered her hair in one fist.

“Good girl,” he panted.

Poe, unable to stand it, shut his eyes.

The slave master groaned - it was a lewd, terrible sound that made Poe want to tear the man apart with his bare hands. He tugged fruitlessly at the chains and roared in fury.

Then there was a new sound: a muffled blaster shot. 

A thud - a big one. 

And then, nothing.

Poe opened his eyes to see Malfeks facedown on the floor. Kix was still kneeling, but she was now holding a small blaster in her hands. Stunned, she dropped it at her side. The acrid scent of laser-burned flesh was thick in the air.

“Kix?” Poe whispered.

She fell forward onto all fours and retched.

Several minutes passed before Kix regained enough sense to stand and release his chains from the wall. She collapsed when they came free, sitting on the floor with her back to the bed. She covered her face with her hands while Poe searched for the keys in Malfeks’s pockets. Closer inspection proved that Kix had shot the man straight through the head, under the chin, while he had been distracted.

She had obviously planned it that way, and the horror of what she had just sacrificed for him was clawing its way up Poe’s own throat, but he resolutely pushed it down. He managed to unlock his manacles in spite of his trembling hands before kneeling beside her slowly, carefully.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and gagged again, spitting and wiping at her mouth. “I’m sorry, Poe; I had to; I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, at a true loss for words, and tentatively touched her shoulder. She let out a pitiful sob and wrenched away from him.

“Don’t _touch_ me!”

“Kix,” he said, “baby.”

“ _Don’t!”_ she cried, and she lashed out at him, shoving. He caught her hands and held them securely in his own, thinking fast. He’d been in more than enough dangerous situations before to know what was needed to get them out safely, but the reality of it tore at him.

“Listen to me. We have to get out of here,” he told her in his best officer’s voice: calm, steady, controlled.

She shuddered and finally looked at him. Her face was chalk white to the lips.

“Just leave me here,” she mumbled. “Go.”

“Over my dead body,” he told her, hating himself.

He stood and pulled his shirt back on, wincing as the dirty cloth settled on his raw skin. When he turned back, she was staring at the dead man on the floor.

“Let’s go,” he commanded, and he pulled her to her feet. “That’s an order.”

“I can’t go back now,” she whispered, her eyes closed, swaying. He kept his hands on her shoulders, steadying her.

“You have to, Lieutenant,” he said, and when she did open her eyes again, they looked like shattered windows.

“Fuck you,” she whispered.

He stared at her for one long, long second, and then nodded, once.

“Yeah,” he agreed, scorched with shame.

He bent again and went about the business of robbing the dead. He took Malfeks’s coat and checked the pockets for the ring necklace that had been taken from him earlier in the day. It was there, and Poe pulled it on over his head, hiding it securely under his shirt. The metal was freezing. Then he put on the coat and hat, hoping it would trick Malfeks’s pilot, and retrieved the blasters from the floor

Kix was still standing in the middle of the room, taking in great heaving gulps of air, trying to calm herself. He came to stand in front of her, face dark and serious, and handed her the small blaster.

“Ready?”

“How can you even stand to - to look at me?” she said, trying her best to hold back tears. He was relieved to see the shock had passed, though, and she took the gun steadily enough.

“You just did something unimaginable to save both our lives, while I did nothing,” he told her. “How can you stand to look at _me?_ ”

“Poe -” she began, but he shook his head.

“Not now,” he said. “Not here.”

* * *

They locked the door to Malfeks’s room from the inside and stole down the deserted corridor. They met only marginal surveillance from guards on the way out to the port yard, and were able to easily hide and wait their way to Malfeks’s freighter.

“Is the pilot a slave?” Poe asked her as they crouched in the shadow of the starship. She shook her head.

“His name is Uos,” she said, and swallowed. “And he’s...awful.”

So when the man granted them entry upon seeing Malfeks’s coat and hat, Poe shot him point blank. No shouts or alarms sounded. Any self-respecting slaver docking on a planet like S’Riq Tur would bring their own security, and Poe knew from experience that thugs who worked for slavers would turn a blind eye to any issue that didn’t directly affect them.

Poe dragged the body to the back of the ship and covered it with the coat while Kix closed the hatch. Then he ripped the hat off and flung it into the wall, wishing with all his might that he could hit something with his fists instead.

Kix sat in the co-pilot’s seat, very still, watching him as he took a deep breath, sat down, and started lift off procedures.

“Can we get Jessika and Tyu?” she asked quietly. “And Lofar?”

Poe hands paused, but he didn’t look at her.

“Lofar?” he asked, his eyes still trained on the controls.

“Yes. He...he gave me the mini blaster.” She bit her lip. “He’s dead.”

Poe clenched his jaw.

“We can’t,” he said, finally, as the ship came to life and they achieved liftoff.

Kix took off her bracelet, which was still, miraculously, blinking.

“Rose is on the other end of this,” she said, and gave it to him. “I don’t know where.”

He took it and broke the bracelet open. The little chip inside fit into a slot on the control panel and the ship shuddered with an impending hyper jump.

“Buckle in,” he ordered, but she didn’t. Instead, she ran to the mini refresher, stepped over the dead pilot, and started to throw up again in earnest as they jumped to lightspeed.

* * *

When they arrived at Ajan Kloss, they still hadn’t spoken. After presenting their open hands to the Resistance at the new ship field, identifying themselves, Kix walked straight up to Leia and held her wrists out to be bound.

“I’m submitting myself for disciplinary action, General.”

Leia looked at Poe, and then back at Kix.

“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant,” she said, but Kix motioned again with her proffered hands, insistent.

“I disobeyed direct orders.”

“C’mon, Kix,” Poe said in her ear, and she flinched away from him like he had hit her.

And then she turned and walked into the jungle.

* * *

Poe sat in the makeshift medical area, numb in more ways than one as the bacta vest did its work on his back. Leia sat on one side of him, still in her nightclothes; Finn on the other, safely returned from his own mission.

When Poe finished recounting everything, Finn stood and walked a few paces away so that his face was obscured. Poe saw that his fists were clenched and shaking at his sides.

“I don’t, uh…” said Poe, trying and failing to keep his voice even. “I don’t really know what to do next, General.”

Leia put a hand on his.

“The hardest thing you’ll ever have to learn is forgiving yourself when you can’t do anything at all, Poe,” she said.

He met her eyes - so much like his mother’s - and asked, desperately:

“How do I do that?”

Leia squeezed his hand.

“I’ll let you know if I ever figure it out,” she said.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D-O voice: "Sad."

Poe didn’t see Kix for days afterward. He knew Rey had been sent to find her a few hours after they had landed, but she must have been taking her meals in solitude - _or not eating at all,_ his brain supplied worriedly, and that thought was the straw that broke the tauntaun’s back. 

He had to find her. Now.

Finn wasn’t around. Neither was Rose or Yama, and he knew Leia wouldn’t give up Kix’s location, so he went in search of Rey.

She was in the trees, floating, rocks rotating slowly around her as she meditated. 

“Hey,” he called up to her. 

She didn’t move, so he tried again.

“Rey!”

No response.

Irritated, he plucked a small stone out of the air and threw it at her. Rey yelped when it hit her thigh and then looked down, glaring. BB-8 made a squawking sound at him and he frowned down at the droid.

“Can I help you?” she asked acidly, floating back to the ground as the rocks did the same. A small one hit him in the back of the head and he was pretty sure she did it on purpose, but he needed information, so he ignored it.

“Where is she?”

“Where is who?”

“Oh, save it,” he retorted. “Where is Kix hiding?”

Rey pursed her lips. She was sweating in the dense jungle air.

“She doesn’t want you to know,” she replied.

“Yeah, and I don’t give a kriff,” he shot back.

She narrowed her eyes at him. BB-8 rolled to stand beside her, looking accusingly up at him.

“You could ask nicely, you know; you don’t have to be difficult,” she began, but he cut her off, angry.

“No, that’s not how this is going to work,” he said, trying to ignore his droid’s disapproval. “I am in love with her and I don’t care what you or anyone else on this damn moon has to say about it, so where is she?”

Rey considered him for a moment.

“I’m only telling you because I’m worried about her,” she said.

“Yeah, well, that line forms behind me.”

Rey sighed.

“She’s in my room on the Tantive IV,” she said. “Code’s 5911.”

“What room? You’ve been bunking with the rest of us in the cave,” he said flatly, not believing her.

She gave him a pitying look that clearly said _‘duh.’_

“ _Yes_ , so Kix can have some privacy.”

He huffed like an irritated bear.

“Fine. Thanks.”

“I’m taking BB-8 on a training run.”

“Be my guest.”

* * *

Poe eased the door to Rey’s quarters open slowly, quietly.

Kix was sitting on the opposite side of the cabin, staring out the small window into the mass of green jungle, her legs tucked up into her chest. A wave of deja vu hit him as he looked at her curled up there, remembering the aftermath of her first mission.

He shut the door and she looked toward the sound, clearly expecting Rey. Her face lost its color when she saw him.

“Hi,” he said.

She turned away and looked back out the window.

“I knew you’d find me eventually, but I did hope Rey would hold out a bit longer than this.”

He sat down in the chair opposite her.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked.

She snorted and rolled her eyes.

“When?” he repeated, stubborn.

In answer, Kix picked up a half-eaten nutrition bar that had been discarded on the table and sarcastically held it up.

“Happy?” she asked, and stuffed it in her mouth.

“No, not really,” Poe said, as he watched her chew.

She folded her arms across her chest protectively and turned to face out the window again. There was a bacta bandage on her neck and several nasty bruises along her hairline and left cheekbone. He traced her profile with his eyes for a long moment. Something about seeing it in sharp relief against the light of the window stirred a memory of someone else’s disdainful expression, but he couldn’t place it.

“Well?” she asked, snapping him back to reality.

“Well, what?”

“You’ve had enough time to perfect your break up speech, so spit it out.”

“Kix,” he said softly, putting his hand out on the table, reaching for her. She ignored it.

“Or maybe I should just put us both out of our misery and do it myself,” she mused, still not looking at him.

Poe tapped his fingers on the table, wrapped in thought for a long moment. Then he nodded, once, and reached under the neck of his shirt and pulled the silver chain up and over his head. He laid the ring in its puddle of links on the table between them and waited until she looked back at him to resume speaking.

“This was my mother’s,” he said.

Kix didn’t say anything, but she did put out a tentative finger, lightly tracing the curve of the ring. Poe made the beginnings of a motion to reach for her, but she flinched. He froze.

 _“Don’t touch me!”_ her voice echoed through his memories: stiff and terrified under Paige Tico’s blanket; huddled against the wall of her room on Iopethus; white as a sheet and trembling as she gagged over her former master’s corpse.

He exhaled and gripped his hands together under the table so he wouldn’t be tempted to use them.

“She left it for me,” he continued, deciding not to say anything about her body language. “When she died. With a letter.”

Kix had noticed his stiff arms, his recognition of her not wanting to be touched. He watched as she visibly tried to relax her shoulders; as she swallowed hard and then seemed to force herself to put both hands on the tabletop.

“What did the letter say?”

“That she loved me,” he answered, trying his hardest to keep his hands in place. “And that I was supposed to keep the ring until I found a person who loved me even more than she did. And honestly, I didn’t think that person existed, so I’ve never considered taking it off.”

Kix’s face was still blank. She turned back to face the window, but her hands remained on the table, so he plowed on.

“But you _do_ exist, and you’re here, and we’re somehow both still alive, only because of you.”

His voice broke as he finished the sentence. He cleared his throat and was gratified when she looked back at him.

“I’m not afraid of you or your past. The only way you’re getting rid of me is if you specifically ask me to leave, and _Maker_ , Kix...please don’t.”

“Poe,” she began, but her tone was all wrong and it scared him, so he just kept talking.

“I _love_ you, okay?” he said loudly. “I love you. I don’t know how else to say it, but I’ll keep saying it until you believe me.”

Kix just stared at him through pained, skeptical eyes.

“And even though you haven’t said the same to me with words, after all this?” he said, picking up the necklace and holding it up between them, where it shone in the filtered sunlight. It hung there for a full ten seconds before Kix held out one palm. He laid the necklace in it gently, and when she didn’t move away, he very, very lightly applied pressure to her fingers, asking without words for her permission. She did not protest, so he wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed, imprinting the texture of the links into her skin.

“After all this, I’m pretty damn sure you love me, too,” he finished, voice rough.

She didn’t move or speak.

“So I’d like you to have that,” he finished, and, after holding her gaze for a moment, seeking trust in her eyes and finding it, leaned down to brush his lips across her scarred fingers. “Whatever you want that to mean. Me, however you want me.”

And then he left.

* * *

Poe, unable to sleep, was working on his X-wing in the middle of the night when Kix came to find him early the next morning.

She cleared her throat and he dropped the wrench he was using. BB-8 picked it up and looked quizzically between the two of them.

“Go on, BB-8,” he said, and the little droid rolled away slowly, unsure, warbling in concern.

Kix watched him disappear behind the makeshift maintenance building, and then she fixed Poe with the most direct, blistering expression he’d ever seen her wear. Something about it made his heart speed up uncomfortably, made him irrationally remember Holdo’s face as he held her at blasterpoint, when she’d glared at him in disappointment and disbelief and said: _“I hope you understand what you’re doing.”_

“You’re right,” Kix said. “I do love you.”

And then she stepped forward and gently settled his necklace back over his head.

“Don’t -” he began raggedly, but she pressed a simple, chaste kiss to his lips to silence him. He closed his eyes as her lips left his, not wanting the image of her leaving burned into his memory. He felt her put something in the palm of his hand, and then she drew away.

He stayed completely still, eyes shut, hoping fervently that when he opened them, she’d still be there.

She wasn’t.

* * *

_Poe,_

_There are a lot of very good reasons we shouldn’t be together, like the fact that we don’t want the same things out of life after the war, or the fact that we’re still_ _in_ _a war that has nearly wiped us all out, or the fact that I carry more baggage than most, but I know you can and would refute all of them, so I’m not going to list them here in detail. I think maybe, eventually, we might have been able to work through those. In a different galaxy, in a different time._

_There is one fact you can’t argue with, though, and it’s that I have no idea who I actually am._

_It isn’t fair for either of us to continue something this enormous without that knowledge. I can hear you arguing that you do know who I am; that my past doesn’t matter to you, but it matters to me. I haven’t done anything for myself, really, ever, and as soon as this war’s over - if I make it through - finding myself is where I have to start._

_This isn’t your fault. This is the fault of whoever took me from wherever it is I came from. And I want you to understand that if I had to do what I did to get you safely away from S’Riq Tur all over again, I would. Without hesitation._

_You will always be part of me - whoever it is I started becoming when you showed me the first bit of kindness I can remember. You will always be with me, wherever I go from here. But I can’t start a new chapter in my life without trying to understand why the past ones were so painful._

_Thank you. For so much more than I could ever write down in a letter._

_Love,_

_Kix_

* * *

Poe finished signing condolence communiques for Jessika, Tyu, and Lofar a few hours after Kix had given him her answer. 

As he walked slowly back to his cot from the new makeshift command center, a flash thunderstorm overtook him. He let the water beat through his clothes while her words beat into his head like a migraine, over and over and over.

_It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair._

When he sat down on the cot, still dripping, he found a pile of holo stills had been laid at the head. He picked them up, squinting, and saw, with some dull emotion that might once have been surprise, that they were his own.

The first two stills were old - his parents, young and smiling serenely in front of the uneti sapling on Yavin IV. And then there was Black Squadron, drunk and rowdy and cheering on D’Qar. His gaze lingered sadly on Jess’s bright smile. 

The next few were newer, all taken on the same night on Iopethus. In one, there was Finn, his arm slung around Poe’s neck, laughing. In the next was Rose, shooting the camera with finger blasters, and beside her, Rey, her tongue stuck out at him.

And in the last, there was Kix, blushing and smiling as he planted a kiss on her temple, his eyes soft and cast downward at her face, his arms wrapped around her. Finn had taken that one, fascinated with the junky old recorder he had found in the depths of the Falcon - the one Chewie swore didn’t work anymore.

He put the stills down and scrubbed his face with his hands. Kix must have grabbed them off of his wall on Iopethus before the evacuation, he reasoned, looking at how much more dogeared they now were. That is - except for the one of him and Kix. He frowned and inspected it more closely.

It was definitely new, he noticed. He turned it over and recognized the gray durasheet backing from the makeshift command center.

Kix had made a copy, he realized. She had made him a copy and done something with the original.

 _Burned it?,_ the hateful, wounded voice in his brain suggested. _Tore it up? Pinned it to a tree and used it for target practice?_

 _Or maybe she kept it,_ answered the tiniest ember of hope, deep down, and somehow, that thought hurt even worse.

He put the stills down and stared out at the silver curtain of rain draping itself across the entrance of the cave.

* * *

Kix hit the ground, hard, her lungs expelling an uncharacteristic growl along with all of the air in her body.

“Kix,” said Rey, warningly, but Kix gritted her teeth and pushed herself back up into her fighting stance.

“Again,” she said. Rey shook her head.

“No.”

“Again!” Kix demanded, and she seized the Force within her and felt it snap tight, somehow, like a piece of laundry being whipped in the air after drying, or a rope reaching its maximum tensile strength before it begins to fray.

Something changed in Rey’s face. Her normally calm, friendly gaze hardened into something different - something that scared Kix.

“ _No_ ,” she repeated, and she held out a hand, palm facing her. Kix felt what she thought must be the full, unchecked brunt of Rey's command of the Force - it was immensely powerful as it bent her backwards, keeping her off-balance. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, trying with every fiber of her being to fight back, to stand up tall, but the pressure only increased until she felt herself being laid out flat on the ground.

Rey stood over her, a deadly serious look in her dark eyes.

“What does it feel like?” she asked.

Kix blinked up at her, panting.

“What?”

“What does it feel like? This feeling, right now?”

Kix laid her head back into the jungle floor. Rey didn’t let up - she was still using the Force to press her down into the dirt.

“It feels brittle,” Kix said, stung. “Like I’m going to...to break. Like I reached a limit.”

The Force released her. Rey reached down and pulled Kix to her feet.

“Good,” she said. “Don’t ever push past that limit.”

Kix wiped her brow, trying to let go of her anger.

“What does it feel like?” she asked, trying not to sound like she was arguing. “For you?”

Rey’s face closed off like a door being slammed.

“You need to get this under control, figured out,” she evaded.

“I don’t need to talk to Poe,” Kix bit out.

“Did I say you need to talk to Poe?”

Kix sighed and tipped her head back so that her face was to the sun.

“No,” she said, sullen.

“You need to get this figured out with yourself. Whatever it was that caused you to make the decisions you’ve made thus far - that’s what you have to reconcile.”

Kix nodded, slowly, wincing. Rey noticed.

“Sorry,” she said. 

Kix shrugged one shoulder. 

“We’ll try again tomorrow. If you haven’t figured it out by then, we’ll try some guided meditation, okay?” said Rey.

Kix nodded again, still smarting a little. Neither of them looked at the other as she turned away to leave. She rolled her neck and shoulders, anticipating bruises and sore muscles in the morning, and was nearly out of hearing range when Rey caught her by surprise.

“It feels like I _have_ no limits.”

Kix paused and turned around to look at her friend. Her irritation and hurt feelings vanished completely when she saw that Rey’s eyes were glassy and her chin was trembling.

“That’s what scares me,” Rey admitted.

Kix strode back to her and wound her arms around the taller woman’s torso, squeezing tight.

“Want to borrow some of mine?” she asked, and Rey’s weak, watery laugh as she laid her head on top of Kix’s made both of them feel a little better.

* * *

Poe was drunk.

Poe was _really_ drunk.

And he was - Kix saw with such a powerful surge of mixed emotions that Rey felt the disturbance she caused in the Force and therefore put a partly restraining, partly comforting hand on her shoulder - wrapped around one of the cute new engineers Rose had been training.

Kix didn’t like to drink much (Malfeks had always been so much more violent after a few Corellian whiskeys), but she had agreed to join Finn and Rey for a bit in the makeshift “cantina” garden under the thick jungle canopy that had been set up on Ajan Kloss, to try and get her mind off of things. Really, it was only a few empty storage crates and stumps that had been set up like tables and chairs, as well as a few kegs of really awful homebrew, but like most things in the Resistance, it was the fighting, resilient spirit of those gathered that made it work.

Kix could feel herself blushing, very determinedly trying not to look back over at the dark corner where she knew Poe was mouthing at the strong jaw of the handsome, blue-haired engineer, who was carding his hands through the pilot’s own curls and looking like he’d won the lottery.

“Oh, kriff me,” muttered Finn, and Rey elbowed him to shut up.

“It’s fine,” Kix heard herself say, and she stood up abruptly. “I’m gonna head back to the Tantive. Night.”

And she ran. 

Well, she tried not to run. But she did anyway.

Rey sighed and looked at Finn, who killed the rest of his brew, shaking his head.

* * *

“You can’t keep doing this, man,” said Finn as he helped Poe collapse onto his cot.

“Doin’ what?” Poe slurred, smiling and sloppy.

“Getting trashed and making out with anything that moves. You know how handsy you get when you’re like this.”

Poe’s laugh was empty and loud.

“ _You’re_ moving,” he pointed out, blinking more than was needed, like he was trying and failing to bat his eyes, and he swayed a bit as he poked Finn in the chest.

“Try it and you won’t like what happens, Dameron,” he warned, but Poe just grinned even more widely and waved him off.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, and flopped sideways onto his pillow. Finn sat down next to him and Poe butted his head hard against Finn’s hip, reaching for his hand. Finn took it.

“Look, I don’t know what it’s like, what you’re going through,” he said, finally. Poe hummed, still somewhere between drunken stupor and attentiveness.

“‘M fine,” he drawled, eyes closed. “Guy was cute. ‘S fine. Doesn’t hafta be...comple-cated.”

Finn sighed.

“We don’t have to talk about Kix if you don’t want to, Poe, but we have to find you a new outlet.”

“Huh?”

“Something to do to work through this besides embarrassing yourself and risking another demotion for setting a poor example.”

“Leia wouldn’ do that,” he objected, too offended. “Gettin’ drunk and killin' Paige Tico aren’ the same thing.”

His words stabbed at Finn’s heart. He hadn’t known Paige Tico, but the fact that Poe brought her up so readily - and the fact that he was so drunk but still able recall names and faces of long-gone comrades - made him even more worried for Poe’s state of mind.

“You didn’t kill Paige,” Finn told him. “The First Order did.”

“My fault,” Poe said softly, more clearly than he’d said anything else, and he withdrew his hand to tuck it under the pillow. “Dead heroes. No leaders. Kix. All of it.”

Not sure how to reply, Finn stood and checked Poe’s canteen. It had water inside, so he hung it within reach of Poe’s head, and then pushed a waste receptacle so that it was immediately next to his friend’s face.

“Look at me,” Finn said, and Poe opened his eyes obediently, even though they were hazy and had a hard time focusing on him.

“All the stuff you’re blaming yourself for - you shouldn’t. You got it?"

The pilot shrugged, but Finn decided that conversation would have to happen when Poe wasn't three sheets to the wind.

"And besides flirting with demerits, you getting so drunk you can't fly isn't smart. We need you sharp. Anything could happen, any time. You know that."

Poe sighed and shut his eyes.

"Y're right," he said.

“Yes, I am. So tomorrow, we’re starting holochess. With Chewie. New outlet. No more of these random drukfaced hookups.”

Poe pouted.

“Fine,” he huffed. “C’n I sleep now?”

“Yes, but you’re not going to like your wakeup call,” Finn told him. “You’ve got a briefing at 0800. And I’m going to make it loud.”

Poe groaned into the pillow.

“Kriff you,” he said.

“You’re the one that set the time, Commander.”

“Well, kriff me, then.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you like some spicy angst? Yes? Ok, good. Enjoy.
> 
> If these events begin to feel familiar, that’s because they are. We’re leading into TROS territory, for better or worse, my friends.

For weeks afterward, they distracted themselves. 

Poe lost at holochess to Chewie.

Kix trained with Rey.

Poe ran flight drills.

Kix trained with Smizzon.

Poe _and_ Finn lost at holochess to Chewie.

The Resistance licked its wounds and slowly, slowly recovered.

Rey trained with Leia and spent every conscious moment blocking out Kylo, terrified someone - especially Kix, who still shared her room, or Finn, who seemed determined to keep tabs on her and Poe simultaneously, like he could be in two places at once - might catch on.

Leia sat alone in thought, hiding the complications from injuries she had incurred from her exposure to the vacuum of space, pleading silently with the Force to illuminate her next decision, to reach her son.

Poe stole glances at Kix when he thought she wouldn’t notice.

(She did.)

Kix stole glances at Poe when she knew he wouldn’t notice.

(And he didn’t.)

* * *

“Okay, this time will be different,” Finn insisted one morning during their break, shouldering Poe into the Falcon and down onto the bench by the holochess board. Chewie roared in derision from the cockpit.

“It will,” Finn said stubbornly, and he switched on the game.

“It won’t,” Poe said resignedly, rubbing his eyes. He still hadn’t been getting much sleep, and had briefly considered breaking down and asking a meddroid for sleep inducers the evening before, but hadn’t.

“No, it will.”

There was a small, strangled kind of sound at the entrance of the hold, and all three of them (Chewie stooping in the doorway from the cockpit) turned.

Kix had her hand raised, curled into a fist, poised to knock against the interior wall of the ship. Her light green eyes were huge and hesitant, and it looked like she was trying to swallow a mouse.

Poe hated how good she looked, standing there framed against the rolling fog of the jungle. Her hair was braided and looped up over her head, like she and Connix had shared a mirror that morning. Resistance rations, though generally tasteless, had done much to strengthen and curve her shape so that she no longer looked starved, but steady and capable. It would be difficult for her to pass as a slave now, Poe realized with a pang of desire, now that she took up her own space so unapologetically.

“Commander Dameron,” she said, and it sounded like the mouse was still stuck in her throat. 

It was the first time she had spoken to him in months. 

And it hurt.

“Yes?” he asked, trying (and failing) to keep his voice even.

“General Organa sent me to relay intelligence my team recovered overnight,” she managed to continue, her voice growing steadier with each word. “We just got back half an hour ago, but I’m sure there’s a new source of Resistance intel in the First Order.”

Chewie rumbled softly and Poe nodded.

“He’s right. How did you authenticate it?”

At that, her brows drew together a little in offense.

“Intelligence Officer Kin did,” she replied stiffly. “And the general approved it. I think that ought to be enough, don’t you?”

“I guess you wouldn’t be gracing us with your presence if you weren’t sure,” Poe remarked. “Seeing as you’ve been avoiding me like I’ve got brainrot.”

Finn shot him a look, but Poe ignored it in favor of continuing to enjoy this very rare chance of examining Kix, unimpeded by the social norm of not openly staring at her from a distance (or at least, not getting caught openly staring at her from a distance). 

Her color was high, flustered. 

_Good_ , he thought savagely.

“What’s the mission?” Finn asked.

Kix hesitated for a moment, but then she took them all by surprise. She seemed to screw up her courage and then moved forward to deliberately lean over the table into Poe’s personal space, her face inches from his. She held up an intel chip in front of his nose and he went a little cross-eyed looking at it.

“Space coordinates of the intel rendezvous point, for which I, personally, risked my life, the lives of my team, and the lives of three now-rescued Resistance sympathizers by going off-mission to get for _you_ , specifically, Mr. ‘I Can Fly Anything.’ All while you were safe and sound on your cot last night,” she spat. “Now, I haven’t slept in 36 hours because of this mission and my patience is a little thin at the moment, so spare me the pity party and take the damn chip.”

Poe took the chip.

“The general says your objective is to recover the intel and get back to Ajan Kloss without dying,” she continued. “Think you can handle that?”

_And...that’s enough._

He locked eyes with her. Something in his face made her back away like he was made of fire and she was standing too close. He could nearly see the realization as it crossed her mind: _Oops. Shouldn’t have done that_.

“Leave it to us. _Your_ objective is to get some rest, Captain.”

She blinked, flummoxed.

“That’s not my rank, Commander.”

“It is now,” said Poe, getting up and crowding her toward the exit. “You’ve been functioning as a captain with your own team already, so it’s more of a formality than anything. And it sounds like this was a tough recovery, so congratulations on your field promotion. I’ll inform D’Acy. Now get off this ship before I decide to also inform her of your insubordination.”

In the past, their difference in height had been a thing of comfort - Poe feeling protective and Kix feeling protected. Now, however, something vaguely electric - a battle of wills, of unspoken things - sizzled in the air between them as he stared impassively down at her, and she glared back up at him.

Kix broke first. She looked down at his chest - at the silver chain peeking out from under his collar - and she swallowed, nervous. He followed the motion of her throat with his eyes, giving her no quarter from his undivided attention.

“Yes, sir,” she finally said, in a low, hoarse voice, and dared to meet his eyes again. That look, those words, the tone in which she said them - they all made him seriously consider (for one brief, insane second) bruising her lips with a kiss, holding her jaw fast in his itching hands, consequences be damned.

 _She’d hit you,_ his brain warned him. _She’d take you down fast enough to make Smiz proud._

 _Exactly,_ his baser instincts concurred, pleased.

But she turned and left quietly, letting him have the last word, and red hot desire twisted, unsatisfied, in his core.

Chewie chuckled behind him and the spell was broken - Poe had completely forgotten they weren’t alone. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, running through flight simulation numbers in his mind, trying to calm himself.

It didn’t work.

“Klaud!” he yelled to the alien mechanic in the yard below the Falcon, and Finn jumped a little at his sudden change in volume. “We gotta go! Need your help with this surge problem, now!”

* * *

Rey sat up, groggy.

“Kix?” she said.

The dark shadow sitting next to the shaded ship’s window sighed.

“Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

Rey blinked and rubbed her eyes, turning over to look at the chronometer. She’d only gone to sleep a few hours before, having tried and failed to wait up for her roommate to return from her recovery mission.

“How did it go? Did you just get back?”

“Successful, and yes, about an hour ago,” Kix admitted, and she raised the shade to let verdant morning light into the cabin. Rey saw that she was keyed up - sitting rigidly, arms and legs crossed, right foot jiggling.

Rey squinted at her.

“What happened?”

Kix spared her a glance. She considered playing dumb, but knew she couldn’t put one past Rey.

“Leia made me talk to Poe.”

Rey frowned.

“Why would she do that?”

“I recovered a data chip on the mission. Apparently, Beaumont thinks it’s the location of some First Order intel that we need. She wants Poe to take the Falcon to go get it.”

Rey sat up straight, now very much awake.

“Have they left?”

“I don’t think so. It was just a few minutes ago.”

Unthinking, Rey slipped on her boots and started for the door, intending to go and catch Finn before he was gone. _And to make sure Dameron takes care of the Falcon_ , she thought sourly, and the door had fallen shut behind her before she remembered to turn back and check on her friend.

She opened it and stuck her head through the door jamb.

“Are you okay?”

Kix let out a short bark of a laugh.

“I got promoted.”

Rey frowned again.

“And that’s upset you...why?”

Kix shrugged, but so forcefully that her shoulders nearly touched her ears.

“I’m not upset.”

Rey raised her eyebrows.

“This is me, not upset,” Kix repeated.

“Right,” said Rey. 

The two women looked at one another - Rey disbelievingly, Kix stubbornly.

“Okay, well, since you’re clearly not upset, I’m going to go catch Finn before they leave,” Rey hedged.

“Have fun,” Kix intoned, but Rey caught her pushing her face into a pillow and letting out a muffled stream of swear words as the door closed again.

* * *

“We’ll just have to have you come with us, pal,” Poe told Klaud, shaking his head at the sparking wires inside the Falcon’s wall. “I can’t keep that together while I’m piloting and we don’t have time to fix it now. We need you.”

Klaud rolled his eyes back and forth and mumbled in his strange language.

Poe furrowed his brow.

“Is that a yes?”

Klaud rolled his eyes again and garbled in heavily accented Basic: “Yes.”

“Okay, great, thank you.”

Poe clapped the mechanic on his - shoulder? Maybe? He didn’t have arms - and jogged down the Falcon’s on-ramp, where he found Rey and Finn absorbed in a conversation that ended abruptly when they noticed his approach. They looked guiltily at one another as he pulled up short next to them.

“Well, if _that_ kind of welcome doesn’t warm a guy’s heart, I don’t know what will,” he remarked dryly.

“Just take care of Han’s ship, okay?” said Rey, as she hugged Finn goodbye.

“You could take care of it yourself,” he replied. 

Rey frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do I mean?’ Come with us. You know the Falcon better than I do.”

“Yeah, well, Leia wants you on the mission, and she wants me here, training.”

“How do you know Leia wants me on the mission?”

Rey’s face hardened a little.

“Kix told me.”

Poe narrowed his eyes.

“That all she told you?”

“Yes, and she was also very adamant that she was ‘not upset’ while screaming into a pillow,” Rey said coolly. “I have a feeling _you_ had everything to do with that, so I’ll stay behind to clean up your mess.”

Poe’s brows lowered dangerously, a hot flush of irritation rising up the skin of his neck as he pointed an accusatory finger at her.

“ _First_ of all, she was the one who mouthed off -”

Finn put up a hand between them.

“Okay, no, we’re not doing this before a mission.”

“Doing what?” asked Poe, shrugging passive-aggressively. “I’m not doing anything but trying to win the war -”

Shaking his head, Finn started pushing Poe up the ramp while Poe walked backwards, still sniping back and forth with Rey.

“You’re not doing anything but causing -”

“Kix is a big girl, she can handle -”

“Stop, please,” Finn asked quietly as they reached the top. Poe sighed.

“Fine,” he fumed. 

Rey crossed her arms and scowled up at them.

“Be careful,” she called up.

“We will,” said Finn.

“Probably won’t,” Poe contradicted. “BB-8, let’s go!”

But the little droid trilled in the negative and stayed put next to Rey on the jungle floor. Poe’s jaw dropped, just a tiny bit.

“You’re _my_ droid!” he said, but R2-D2 rolled up the ramp instead, while BB-8 chattered his explanation.

“He says you’ll need Artoo’s memory -” Rey began.

“I _know_ what he said!” Poe snapped, now truly angry. “Again, he’s _my_ droid! Did you reprogram him -”

“Time to go!” said Finn, and he pushed the button to close the door. Poe barely made it inside before it sealed and Chewie fired up the engines.

* * *

Kix was standing with Beaumont when the readout from Boolio was decoded.

Beaumont didn’t really react. He read the missive and then stumbled backward, sitting down hard on a chair.

“Beau?” Kix asked, alarmed at his sudden collapse, and then at the greenish tinge to his face.

Wordlessly, he handed the datapad to her.

She was already running to Leia before she’d even finished it.


End file.
